Lapse in Time!
by Ginzo
Summary: Naruto decides to take a trip to whirlpool village to the old Uzumaki compound after finishing his three year training with ero-sennin. Naruto makes a mistake and ends up meeting Aslan and is now given a chance to go back to the past with his memories of the future. What does Naruto plan on doing now? Perhaps give rise to the village hidden in the Whirlpools and become a new leader
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters nor do I seek to make any profit from this story. The only thing that belongs to me is the plot.**

**The characteristics of the characters in here are going to be altered quite a bit. Chief among them being Naruto who is a lot more smarter than he usually is as portrayed in the anime. The events that are going to be followed are going to be strictly manga at all times. I haven't had the chance to watch the anime properly, hence my limited source of knowledge with anything to do with the movies or the anime lol. Plus it is a purely different story than what you are used to, so relax and read the story at your own pace.**

**Lapse in Time!**

Chapter 1 – A Conundrum

Naruto had made a huge mistake. Scratch that. He had made a colossal mistake. Naruto had decided to ditch Ero-Sennin partway through their trek back to Konoha on their way back from the village hidden in the rain. Not that he had any idea of why they decided to visit that gloomy old place in the first place, but hey who was he to say no to all the free ramen that the perverted sage promised him if he went on the trip with him.

Naruto sighed as he remembered the last 3 years of his life. The last 3 years were supposed to be an awesome training exercise with the perverted sage where he got to learn really cool ninjutsu and taijutsu. But the only thing he learned was the different types of massages that he should give to a woman to make her feel good. Naruto hung his head in embarrassment as particular memories that he had been trying to suppress reared its ugly head. Like the time when he met tomochi-chan and did that thing to her toes, or the time when me met kana-chan and did that thing to her finger, or the time he met kora-chan and he did that-

Naruto`s thought process abruptly stopped as he valiantly put forth an effort to crush down that particular memory. God kora-chan was not pleased after what he did, well neither were the others as whatever he did to them, he did to them when they were partially asleep and when they thought that a woman was the one that was doing those massages. Imagine their surprise when they find out that a 14 year old kid had been getting a little antsy on their bodies. Suffice to say that the Kyubi no Kitsune was working overtime to make sure that Naruto did not end up permanently crippled.

Naruto hung his head as he remembered how his first year of training had been, it was to say the least, abysmal. At least after he had gone crazy from all the tension and let loose 4 tails of the kyubi and attacked the pervert, did he learn the joys of fuinjutsu from the perverted sage. Albeit, he taught it to him as a secondary thing to his research. Kami knows what sorts of stuff he wrote down in that book of his while giggling like a little girl. It wasn't even the fact that ero-sennin taught him anything, more so he just gave him the scrolls and expected him to figure it out, and he had, to an extent at least.

Naruto had taken to his fuinjutsu training with an incomparable zeal. The intricacies of different seals, which at one point would have been a source of frustration for him, were now a source of pure enjoyment. Naruto loved forming all the different types of seals possible and the manner in which he can apply them throughout. He was no seal master, but he was still becoming very proficient at them. Naruto sighed as he remembered the first time he had managed to seal away a jar of water and then extracted it just the way it was supposed to be. He was overjoyed beyond recognition. Not that anyone was around to recognize the fact that he had completed his first seal successfully. His trainer, ero-sennin, was out doing _research._

While it is true that ero-sennin is a very nice guy at heart and perhaps a very strong shinobi as well, but he was definitely not the type of teacher that Naruto needed in his life. Naruto felt that all the teachers that he had so far not suited to him. Kakashi, while brilliant, was obviously inclined more towards ninjutsu. This on its own makes Kakashi a fantastic candidate for being Naruto's sensei, but their different affinities put quite a cramp in their student-teacher rapport. Naruto thought about all those different sensei's that were back in Konoha, and perhaps the only one that he could think of who would be a good teacher to him would have been Sarutobi Asuma.

Now that would have been cool if Asuma was the one that taught Naruto how to be a good shinobi. He was a talented man with a healthy respect for everyone around him, plus the man kept a well maintained beard at all times, how bad could he possibly be. Also add to the fact that Asuma was one of the few well developed shinobi in Konoha whose elemental affinity was wind. Naruto sighed, these were the things of the past, it would make no difference to spend his time musing on it.

Alas his muse is the reason for which he is currently royally screwed. After wasting his 3 years on the so called training by ero-sennin Naruto thought about all the expectations back in Konoha that Baa-chan or Sakura-chan might have. 'Man this sucks,' thought Naruto. And it was in this moment that he came across that scroll. The scroll that Naruto had overlooked before as it contained nothing but history of the Uzumaki clan and its relation to seals.

Now it wasn't that Naruto wasn't interested in history, it was just that he had misplaced the scroll and didn't find it for a while. Yeah that's right he had just misplaced the scroll and nothing else. Anyways the scroll was basically the reason why Naruto was so screwed at the moment. The scroll not only talked about the history of the Uzumaki clan but also about the different types of seals that they used.

Apparently Naruto's forefathers had used restricting seals that ranged from restraining different chakra points to enhance the amount of chakra being able to be released from that point to restricting different muscle groups in the body in order to increase their strength and flexibility. They also used the restriction seals to suppress ones epicentre. The epicentre in a ninja was responsible for the elemental affinities present within a Shinobi. The epicentre grows in a rampant manner, where it can stretch to either water or fire depending on a person's personality. Where hot temper led to fire, but calm demeanour led to water. On the same side, mule headed stubbornness led to lightning and liberal views led to wind, symbolizing freedom. Stability in mind and personality led to earth.

The Uzumaki clan had done quite a bit of research in the different types of seals that can be placed on the epicentre to restrict the rampant manner of it growing and guiding it in a manner where at least 3 of the affinities could be grown rather than the usual 2 that elite jounins were able to achieve after rigorous training.

The last particular type of seal that the Uzumaki clan researched had to deal with time. Apparently they believed that depending on the amount of chakra that one puts into this seal that they had developed, could allow the person to travel to the future or the past minutely. The past required a lot more chakra than the future, as in jumping to the future you just had to channel your chakra a little bit into the seal and it would cause for things around you to slow down. From the outside perspective, if you were to be moving, then it would seem to the person that you are moving at an extremely high speed. Naruto had heard about the yellow flash of Konoha, Yondaime Hokage. And in all those stories the legend, Haraishin no jutsu, was described in a similar manner to what the seal talked about. It was this salivating prospect that had lead Naruto to ditch the ero-sennin and come make a trip to the Whirlpool country.

Everything had gone fine in his trip, he only met a couple of bands of bandit whom he defeated quite easily. After all it's not every day that the bandits have the misfortune to run into not only a rough brawler but also a rough brawler that heals all his injuries very quickly with an inexhaustible source of energy, literally. Naruto was successful in locating the old premises of the Uzumaki clan. While the house compound looked like it was taken over by the forest from the outside, on the inside it seemed that the house had been preserved properly. There were various seals that were visible to Naruto as the moment he stepped through the threshold of the foyer, they all glowed in a light blue colour. Naruto had felt a slight prick on his right hand. He had turned his hand over to see that some blood had been drawn from his hand which had then gone on to fall on the ground. The ground had soaked up his blood while it had glowed light blue in colour.

Naruto remembered spending the next half an hour exploring the place. It was decent if not bad. After spending some time he had found an entrance that required him to slit his hand with his kunai and place his bloodied hand on the seal engraved on the stone. The stone had drank his blood and kept on drinking until the blood was able to cover each and every crevice of the engraved seal. Naruto felt as if he had just lost a pint of his blood, nothing the stupid fox would be able to take care of thought Naruto as he stepped through the now open door.

Through the door Naruto had found that many different rooms existed down there. It was as if a huge apartment style living space was designed downstairs with various rooms to sleep in and various empty rooms with special type of stone coating on the floors. Naruto soon came to realize that these special chambers had seals drawn on the floor specifically. Perhaps they were training rooms for the Uzumaki clan members in the past, thought Naruto as he had examined the seals etched into the floor.

Naruto had thoroughly excavated the place and was barely containing his giddy excitement when he came to the library. At first he wasn't really interested but after taking a closer look at the scrolls he realized that all the techniques listed there were in fact techniques. Many scrolls focused on wind and water techniques as it turns out that many of the past Uzumaki clan members had been quite gifted with these two specific elements, but that's not to say that the scrolls regarding the other elements were scarce. Naruto was practically salivating at the prospect of such an arsenal available at his fingertips. He went through the scrolls, picking them at random, reading them and tossing them behind him till the pile grew up to his hip. After a while Naruto spotted a very thick scroll, similar to the one that ero-sennin carried with him that allowed him to summon the toads. Naruto quickly shuffled over to the area to take a look at it and on the contract it read that it belonged to the shiberia tora (Siberian tigers). Naruto scratched his head as he had no idea what Siberian Tigers were or what they looked like. He opened up the scroll to take a look inside it and in there was a long list of names already there, surprisingly many were non-Uzumaki. Apparently the Uzumaki clan members had felt that it would have been fine if people other than their clansmen were to sign the contract. The last name on the contract was Uzumaki Kushina. For some reason Naruto felt oddly connected to her. Naruto had placed the scroll back and picked up another thick scroll next to it. This scroll was an index scroll for the library apparently. Naruto quickly thought of his favourite technique, taju kage bunshin no jutsu. Immediately a scroll from the library flashed onto the square drawn on the desk.

Naruto picked up the scroll and took a look at it, momentarily impressed with the seal work done on it to transport it in such a manner. He opened the scroll and read through the information written on it. Naruto was surprised at the detail with which the information was listed. He looked at the perks of the jutsu and found that the main cause of this jutsu was for information gathering. 'Hmm and here I thought that the jutsu was for battle situations.' Naruto, from the scroll, understood that whenever a clone dispels itself, all of its information is sent back to him. Naruto decided to test this and tried to make one clone. In its place three clones were made, Naruto shook his head and told them to go into the next room and do something. He waited for a few minutes, when all of a sudden the clone's memories returned to him. It seems that they were talking about how awesome this place was. Naruto chuckled wryly and placed the scroll back. He left the room for now, fully intending to come back and explore it leisurely sometime in the next week. With his new clone ability it wouldn't take him long to go through the library at all. Naruto kept on walking towards the end of the corridor while checking out the rooms, until he came to a door with heavy seals on it.

Naruto placed his hand on the door handle and immediately a cut appeared on his arm and the blood dripped on the door steadily. The seals placed on the door activated again before dying out and letting the door open. The creaking of the axles of the door was heard in the dark room. Naruto hesitatingly stepped forward when all of a sudden the torches along the walls became alight. Naruto found himself standing in a bare room that was roughly fifteen feet in length and width. Along the walls, ceiling, and floor, seals were inscribed on them. This room was the reason for which Naruto was caught in his current predicament.

After entering the room and checking around it, Naruto had placed his arms on the floor where hands were inscribed into it, and as soon as his hands were in place, Naruto felt an excruciating amount of pain rip through him. His eyes had turned back in his head until only the whites of his eyes were visible. Naruto was stuck to this room in the same position for the last few hours. He felt as his very being was being ripped apart piece by piece.

Naruto sat through all the pain as vivid images flashed all around the room. He stayed stuck in that position as he saw himself never making the trip to Whirlpool country. He saw as he went through a second bell test with Kakashi. He saw himself running after akatsuki member Deidara to retrieve Gaara. He saw Baa-chan and him shedding tears over ero-sennin's death. He saw as Danzo fought with Sasuke and lost. He saw as Sasuke defeated Itachi. He saw as Pein defeated Konoha ninjas and flattened the village. He saw as he trained with Killer Bee (Kirabi) to defeat the Kyubi and take his chakra from him. He saw as he met his father Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina. Naruto watched the ninja villages forming an alliance with him leading the attacks and defeating Uchiha Madara and Uchiha Obito. He watched as Kurama (kyubi no kitsune) was ripped out of him forcefully by the fourth hokage that was brought back through Edo Tensei. He watched as Orochimaru, Kabuto and Sasuke laid waste to the allied shinobi. He watched as Hinata died trying to avenge him. Naruto saw himself lying on the ground with blood pooled around his stomach and coughing up blood. He saw himself reaching across and grabbing Hinata's hands as she smiled at him while coughing up blood. And only one thought went through his mind was, 'why didn't I see Hinata-chan for how gorgeous she is before this time came.' Naruto felt the world go black.

The next time Naruto opened his eyes, he was standing in a forest. A forest flooded with streams of light that escaped through the sparse space between the leaves of the trees. Around Naruto, at even distances, were different pools of water. Naruto looked around in a confused manner until he heard a voice that had a very deep baritone to it, as if the voice weren't human.

"Welcome Child."

Naruto turned around looking for the source of the voice. When he turned around he saw a figure standing a few metres away from him. But it was difficult to see the person as there was too much light being shined in Naruto's eyes. Naruto quickly raised his arm and shaded his eyes as he looked towards the figure. The figure stepped a few feet forward until a huge lion came into view. Naruto felt as if Kakashi and Sasuke decided to blast a few chidoris through him at the same time. He quickly shuffled back a few steps and took a defensive stance. "Nani! What the heck are you?" Naruto quickly reached for a kunai in his weapon's pouch, only to find that his pouch was missing. Naruto heard a rich laughter coming from the lion in front of him.

"I would assume that after talking to a lot of summons animals, your kind on your world would at least have the decency to not be shocked when another animal talks to you."

"Well yeah that is kinda right, sorry about that," Naruto chuckled. "But who are you and where am I and I need to get back to the village, Akatsuki attacked and everyone was dying and I was dying..." Naruto trailed off as he realized what happened. "Am I dead?"

The lion chuckled and shook his mane. He walked towards Naruto and sat down, prompting him to follow his example. After they were seated properly, the lion replied in his deep timbre voice "You have a lot of questions child. I understand that, but calm down, nothing you just saw has happened so far. All those things that you saw in that vision, are things that have not come to pass yet and nor will they now since you are here. And to answer your questions, my name is Aslan, we are currently in a place that is in between different worlds." Aslan blinked owlishly at Naruto as Naruto's mouth grew wider with each word that Aslan said. Naruto's rising confusions was eloquently put forth in one word.

"Huh?!"

Aslan chuckled again and looked off in the distance as he started to explain things to Naruto. "What you did in that room in the Uzumaki compound was that you used a certain amount of energy from yourself in order to reach this place. Usually it is not possible without certain objects to get here, but in order to compensate for that you basically used your life force, or what you call chakra in your world." Aslan waited as he saw Naruto slowly nod his head in confusion while his eyes went from round in shape to slits. "When you use up your chakra to this extent, the exhaustion would lead to death before you even reach to this place, but seeing as how you are a host to another creature inside you, let's just say that the required chakra for the seal to work was fulfilled."

"Wait how do you know about Kurama," asked Naruto while subconsciously failing to notice the fact that he referred to the kyubi by his name rather than calling it just the stupid fox.

Aslan smiled at Naruto's slip of tongue, but disregarded it as well. "I know many things about you Naruto and about your clan. I am the person responsible for keeping an eye on the world and its inhabitants. I am responsible for urging them to see the good in themselves in others and encourage their good actions subtly."

"If you are responsible for such things, then why was I as a child hated by other people. Couldn't you have come in and defeated the Kyubi and the Akatsuki for us and saved us a lot of grief," exclaimed Naruto loudly.

"Alas it is not my choice to act in such matters. Over time I have become more and more secluded and through my actions I have learned my lessons. The Kyubi attacked you because it was forced to. Akatsuki decided to form of its own volition and attacked you. The fact of the matter is that while I have the power to act on your behalf and fight your battles for you, I realized that if you don't come to see the errors in your ways then you as a people will revert back to where you were. I have tried before, to time and again help the people to come back to the right path through direct intervention. But alas the result of that turned out to be that the people became dependent on me to solve their problems. They treaded carefully while they remembered about me, but as generations came to pass and as the ages passed, they soon forgot about me and reverted back to their original nature. The reversion in fact had regressed them as a society more than where they were initially." Aslan took in a deep breath as he continued with a troubled voice. "While I would love to lend a helping hand directly, I have learned that it is not at all beneficial to the worlds that I oversee. In fact some direct help has inadvertently caused for world's to reach their ends."

Naruto now mellowed out by Aslan's words looked down towards the ground. "What am I doing here then Aslan? Am I really dead then?"

Aslan shook his head and looked at Naruto again as he came back out of his musings. "No Naruto, you aren't dead. You are as alive as me right now. And the reason you are here is that the seal that you decided to use was designed for this specific purpose, to contact me. I want you to think about all those images that you saw prior to coming here Naruto, tell me what happened in those images?"

"I saw the world end as we knew it," said Naruto in a sad manner. "And here I thought that I would always come through with my attitude and find a way to make things work." Naruto's shoulders shook as he cried after remembering those memories. He cried as he found out who his parents were. He cried at the betrayal of his once teammate. He cried for the love that he could have once found in Hinata. He cried for the loss of countless lives that had to be given up when they could have been saved. Naruto sat there pounding his fists into the ground as tears slowly leaked out of his eyes and onto the grass. Naruto felt something shove against his head as he looked up to see that Aslan had moved closer to him.

"You had the right attitude Naruto. It wasn't that you were weak either nor was your will weak. No, the will of your comrades was weak. It was their lack of belief in themselves that lead to things ending in such a manner. I have decided Naruto. I want you to go back to your world, this time equipped with the knowledge of what is to happen in the future. I want you to go back to when you were a child and I want you to see what you can do in order to inspire your friends. Now with that said, keep in mind that some things are not possible, as some people regardless of what you do or tell them, they will not change their ways. Therefore use your time wisely Naruto, use it and shine, shine in a way that you inspire others and rather than hunkering down and bringing others down with you, inspire others to follow after your example and join you in your battle to overcome the faults that we find in ourselves. I unfortunately cannot interfere in your time anymore than this Naruto, but when you find yourself in trouble, look for my kith and kin in your world, look for them and have them guide you to your correct path."

"Thank you Aslan. I don't know how it is that you can make me believe such things but thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will use my times in a very wise manner and I will use it to ensure that we ninja as a people are able to overcome the wars and live in peace. Thank you once again Aslan," said Naruto as he felt himself slowly fade away.

Aslan stood in front of him and started to blow on his head. "Now remember Naruto, even though you saw all those images of the future, it doesn't mean that that future has to occur. No future is set in stone, the only thing that can alter the future is your present decisions. Kurama in you unfortunately won't know or feel any difference and these memories will be protected from it. These memories are solely yours Naruto. Use them wisely and good luck." With one final warm gust of wind, Aslan was the only one left in the green pasture.

Naruto slowly opened his eyes as he came back to the world of the living. He opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was paint peeling off of a ceiling. Naruto owlishly blinked at the ceiling feeling slightly disoriented. He slowly sat up and stretched his arms above his head and tried to re orient himself. He couldn't remember what was going on. He hopped out of the bed and went to the bathroom, only to take a look at himself in the mirror and shriek in horror.

Naruto grabbed his face and felt about for any sign of fuzzy hair on chin to see if the mirror was playing a trick on him or not. When he found no hair on his chin, he clasped his hands in a ram seal and yelled "Kai!" But nothing happened. As Naruto was slowly turning himself into a frenzy of panic, all the memories came back to him at once. Naruto remembered the future that he witnessed, he saw the conversation with Aslan play out in his head and nearly passed out. 'How is this possible,' thought Naruto. He pulled himself off of the bathroom floor as he had fallen down when all his memories were assaulted.

Naruto stood looking at the mirror for the next couple of minutes before deciding that this was real. While he still had a slight doubt that he was perhaps caught in an intricate genjutsu, Naruto realized that even genjutsu has its limits. Perhaps if he went out in the city and saw different reactions then it would make sense as to whether or not what he was caught in a genjutsu or not. Naruto quickly changed out of his bedclothes into his orange jumpsuit. While he was putting them on, he saw the goggles that he used to have with him when he was a kid. He traced a finger along the edges as he thought about them lovingly. They had been a gift for him when he was a kid, the only gift he received on his birthday. And if those future images were right, then this gift was given to him by Hinata. 'To think that even when everyone hated me and took to beating me on my birthday, Hinata was one of the few that would care enough to give me a gift.' Naruto chuckled wryly as he thought about how long it took for him to acknowledge Hinata's presence. If nothing is capable of doing it, a trip to the past definitely is, thought Naruto wryly.

Naruto took the goggles and placed them on his head. He could afford to be a kid again for one day, thought Naruto while he exited his building with a small smile on his face. He had a genuine smile on his face instead of his false smile that he used to carry with him all the time when he was a kid. Naruto walked in to a convenience store to buy milk. He went to a fridge and opened it up and picked up a carton of milk. He checked the price and checked his pocket to see that he had enough change available there. He went to the cashier to pay for his milk, when he noticed that while he was counting his money the cashier swiped the milk carton with another. The cashier held out his hand for the money while Naruto just stared at him. "What was that old man?"

"What are you talking about brat?" asked the cashier in an angry voice. "Hurry up and pay up brat, you are keeping up the rest of the customers." The cashier made to move forward and grab the money off of Naruto's hands. Naruto quickly moved his hands out of his reach, causing for the cashier to slightly stumble and push the bag of milk forward. Naruto pocketed his money, picked up the milk and checked the expiry date. He found that the milk carton he had just picked up was not the same as this one.

"Why did you change my milk carton old man," asked Naruto in a heated voice. "Do you know that this milk is expired, it can cause harm to me if I drink it, worse come to worse I can probably get food poisoning from it and end up dying." At this point Naruto was just exaggerating his claims, but he was severely pissed off in his defence.

"What are you talking about brat, that's the milk carton you just brought from the fridge," said the cashier.

"Oh yeah?!" exclaimed Naruto as he quickly walked back to the fridge picked up another carton of milk and shoved it in front of the cashier and said "I will be buying this milk carton instead then."

The cashier grits his teeth at the kyubi brat. "Brat I am going to say this just once, I am only going to sell you this milk and no other from my store. And if you get food poisoning, well I say great to that, at least that way we wouldn't have a demon runnin' around the streets now would we?" snarled the cashier.

Naruto for his part was rooted to the spot. He was shocked as it had been a long time since he was treated as such. After defeating Gaara, he had gained a modicum of respect with the Konoha civilians, but Naruto had apparently forgotten how ignorant these people were in their hatred before. Naruto's shock soon gave way to anger, cold and slow anger. "Did you know that no drug or alcohol is responsible for causing the fundamental problems of the society," said Naruto in a cold and derogatory manner. "If we were to look for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs but rather we should test them for their stupidity and their ignorance. It is people like you that are the bane of good citizens of Konoha. It is diseased scum like you that rot the city streets and bathe the street in your foul stench. A demon brat running around the street is what I am, am I? Well then tell me, if I am a demon brat as you say I am should I go out of my way by acting the role and killing you?" Naruto was nearly snarling at this point. The whole store had gotten quiet as they were listening on in the conversation. The cashier's face was slowly going pale by the moment.

"W-w-w-e-e-e-l-l-l I was just saying stuff that people say you know, no need to get angry about it," stuttered the cashier as he was really scared at this point.

Naruto's anger kept on increasing. "So you just decided to spout off things that you heard in the street. Man how dense can you possibly be. Have you ever stopped to think for a second about the original reason for which you hate me. Have you ever thought of what's _in me_!" yelled Naruto. "Tell me why I should refrain from turning my tenant against scum like you! Scum who would fall as low as to treat a boy like me in such a manner!" Naruto was practically yelling at this point but he didn't care. All the pent up aggression that he was feeling at watching the future images and his helplessness was being vented out right now on the cashier. The latter of which now was literally shaking behind the counter and had backed up towards the wall as far from Naruto as possible. All of Naruto's shouting had brought forth a ring of audience outside the store. Many of them stared at Naruto in a new light but many still glared at Naruto. But the major emotion rolling off of the audience was fear.

"I am so-so-so-so-sorry, please just take the milk and leave," begged the cashier.

Naruto calmly walked up to the counter, took the carton of milk, pulled out the exact amount of money and slapped it on the counter while giving the cashier a hard look. He then proceeded to walk out of the door with his head held high and his back straight. As he walked through the crowd, the crowd parted for him. As Naruto got to the edge of the crowd, he noticed a couple of anbu on standby. He saw one of them slip a knife back into his cloak. Naruto narrowed his eyes at this motion and turned on his heel and walked towards the edge of the village where he could find solitude. Naruto turned into a small alley and ran away to lose his anbu trail. He soon arrived at an abandoned training ground, it was training ground number seventy eight.

Naruto sat down in contemplation as to what it is that he could do that was separate from the first time around. It was obvious that such illogical hatred from the people stemmed not only from the kyubi attack but also from the fact that the people themselves were flawed in character themselves to an extent. After all, how hard is it to take a look at a young child and see that the said child is suffering due to the so called '_adults_' actions. The adults are supposed to protect the kids in the village and yet here he was the classic example of child abuse. Did they truly believe that abusing a child would keep the kyubi at bay. Naruto shook his head in frustration as he thought about the irrationality that the villagers had displayed towards him.

Naruto compared the leaf village's reaction towards him with that of the reaction from the whirlpool country when he went there for his visit prior to the time reset. Everyone there knew who he was. They knew that he was the Uzumaki Naruto, the last remaining Uzumaki that was the container of Kyubi no kitsune. They knew that he housed a demon and yet they had decided to treat him with respect. He remembered how a little girl had walked up to him and given him a blue azalea flower and then run back to her mother. She had waved back at him while Naruto looked at her mother to see if she would be in trouble, but the girl's mother just smile at him, and tugged the little girl's hands to get her moving. There was no malice present in any of the villager's eyes. There were no derisive comments passed towards him. While it is true that it is entirely possible that such events did not occur as the Kyubi never attacked the Whirlpool village, but the Ichibi never attacked the sand and yet Gaara was feared throughout Suna. Naruto came to the conclusion that the populace of Whirlpool village were a fantastic example towards what the people in Konoha should be like. At the word example, Naruto's memory was triggered. _"Lead by example Naruto."_ Aslan's words resonated in Naruto's mind.

It were these words that would lead to the maps being changed later in the future. It were these words that lead to Naruto's next decision. Naruto had decided on leaving Konoha and departing to Whirlpool Village.

'Although, leaving the village would pose quite a few problems,' thought Naruto. 'The council will definitely try to stop me with everything they have. They would not want to lose their weapon, while the civilian council would be more than willing to part with him, the ninja council would not be. Also Oji-san would not be pleased to part with me either. But if I tell the Hokage about my plans, he will definitely try to stop me, as I am still a child in the eyes of the world.'

As the thoughts went through his head, Naruto's course of action became clear. Naruto would with the help of his shadow clones, learn his previous jutsus again. He would increase his chakra control as well as he could as he realized through the pictures in the future that he would need every bit of chakra as he could get in order to go toe to toe with akatsuki members. Naruto knew that if he wanted the world to change, he needed to provide a leader to whom they could all look up to. Naruto knew that in order to do so, a new village would have to rise up in power. As the old powerful five nations had been at war with each other too much to view each other as anything other than enemies was impossible for them. Naruto ironed out the kinks in his plans as he came to the final draft.

After mastering his jutsus, Naruto would henge into another person and sneak out of the village. He would travel a few days away from the village wall and then enact an Uzumaki ritual that he had seen on the fuinjutsu scrolls that he browsed through while he was in the library. The said seal would enable him to transform into an adult body with attributes of his own choosing. Naruto can choose his own hair colour and eye colour as well. After attaining his new look, Naruto would go on to the Uzumaki clan house for a while and then he would go to the Whirlpool Daimyo and talk to him about raising a small ninja village in the Whirlpool Village again. 'Yes this will be the best course of action at the moment.'

With all his brainstorming completed, Naruto quickly stood up and finished his milk in one go. He looked up at the sky to notice the sun standing straight above his head. Naruto nodded to himself and decided to check what his current chakra control level is. Naruto formed the cross seal and tried to make twenty shadow clones. The result was slightly different then what Naruto expected. Instead of twenty shadow clones, in front of him stood about two thousand shadow clones. Naruto felt as his chakra reserves were quickly drained. 'Perhaps trying to do some chakra control prior to forming any type of clone would have been a smart idea,' thought Naruto as he panted with exertion. 'Well what's done is done.'

"Alright everyone listen up!" yelled Naruto to his shadow clones. "I want you all to split up in two groups right now." Naruto watched as his clones quickly shuffled into position. "Right. Group A move to the left side of the trees and I want you all to do the tree climbing exercise for chakra control. Group B I want you all to grab a leaf and float it on top of your hand. Dispel yourselves one by one at these two stones." Naruto pointed towards two stones at different edges of the field. Naruto had come up with this technique to save himself from the mental exhaustion that came with this type of training. "Alright troops move out!"

"Yes Boss!" the clones shouted before bouncing off towards their assigned duties. Naruto meanwhile headed towards the shade of a tree. He could have asked a certain number of shadow clones to release themselves at different times so that the learning process could be quicker, but Naruto knew that many clones would die before they could even start the tree climbing exercise. And in doing so, all the clones would increase their chakra control slightly. Plus they all knew how to do it from their memories, they just needed to accommodate it to the new body they were in now. Naruto sat down beneath the tree in Indian fashion. He then proceeded to bring his arms towards the middle of his lap and close his eyes. Naruto slowly went into a deep meditation.

The next time Naruto opened his eyes, he was again present in the sewer again. He slowly walked through the winding tunnels towards where the Kyubi was. Naruto approached the gate as he felt the heavy evil nature of the Kyubi cling on to him. **"Kukukuk. So you have finally come to see me," **said the Kyubi. Naruto looked at it in confusion as to why it would think this was the first time meeting, until he realized that only Naruto had the memories of the future.

"Who are you?" asked Naruto, deciding to play it simple as he thought it would be quite a stupid move on his part if he gave the kyubi too much information before the moment was right.

**"I am Kyubi no Kitsune! But you don't need to worry about that. Come here brat, come closer,"** urged the kyubi. He had me come close to me until I was standing in front of the gate again. **"See that white paper on the cage, rip it off kid. If you rip it off I will give you all the power you seek. I will make you the most powerful man alive on this world right now." **The kyubi was chuckling at this point again.

"I don't know about power Kyubi. I don't want power. How about we become friends?" asked Naruto innocently.

**"Friends!"** yelled an enraged Kyubi. **"Since where does a brat like you get off by claiming to be friends with such a powerful beast as me! Rip off the seal brat and I will give you unimaginable power."**

Naruto snickered quietly. He decided to push his buttons and his luck a little more. "No, I don't think I would like to do that." The Kyubi's growls at this point were getting louder. Naruto slowly felt the memories from his clones coming back as they formed a line and were quickly releasing themselves. "Well as much fun as this has been Kyubi, I have to get going now. I will come by some other time to play with you. Buh-bye!" Naruto was doing everything he could to not laugh out loud as he ran away from the cage and away from the Kyubi's rants of eating him alive when he got out.

After coming out of his deep meditation like trance he noticed that the 4 hours had gone by. The Sun was not at its zenith anymore but rather it was already sinking towards the west. Naruto watched as the last of the clones release themselves. He sat there while going over there progress and looking over at the mountain with the hokage faces. They looked dull yellow in the late afternoon light. Naruto quickly got up and moved towards the tree behind him. He stopped in front of it, gathered chakra at his feet and he began to climb up the tree. Naruto noticed that he had a rough grip of the concept again. While it was not perfect, his chakra control was definitely coming along. Naruto decided that a couple of hours with his shadow clones should do the trick. Satisfied with tree climbing, Naruto hopped down with a leaf in his hand. He went on to float the leaf in the palm of his hand. The leaf slowly rose in the air, an inch off of his hand and stayed there, stable and static. Naruto was now more than satisfied with the results as he had managed to achieve at least half his previous chakra control in only 4 hours. Naruto nodded to himself with a pleased smile. He formed the shadow clone jutsu seal again and again one thousand clones littered the field. Naruto meant to make only 800 clones but this time he overshot by only 200 rather than the previous attempt. Naruto directed his shadow clone arm to the forest again to practice tree climbing again.

While the clones were practicing chakra control, Naruto went on to stretch himself. After he felt limber and warmed up. Naruto settled into his taijutsu stance that he had learned from a stranger on the road while he was with ero-sennin. The style was called the Tiger styled taijutsu. The stranger had been reluctant to teach much about its history, but he taught about the different forms quickly enough when Naruto offered to buy him drinks. Naruto had taken the forms to mind and memorized them all and practiced them day in and day out. The result was that Naruto was a proficient taijutsu specialist by the end of the three years. But now after the reset, he would have to reclaim his previous physical capabilities again. Naruto slowly started to move from form to form. He trained in the different katas for the next two hours until he started to feel the memories of all the clones coming back to him. After all the clones had dispelled, Naruto went down to his knees while breathing harshly. It took him a few minutes to get his breathing under control and to see that the chakra control exercises were as complete as possible. It seems that the clones had figured out a method to dispel if someone had an idea or figure something out, so that way everyone could progress more quickly. The end result of the day was that Naruto had spent 6000 hours on tree walking and leaf floating exercises. That is 250 days, a little more than 8 months of training in one day. Naruto smiled to himself at the good news. If only he knew that he could train in such a way before.

Naruto picked himself up and started his weary walk back towards his apartment. As he was walking he noticed that the number of glares present in the people's eyes had somewhat diminished, or perhaps it was just a trick of light. Naruto shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly and continued on his way. When he reached his apartment, he quickly heated up a bowl of ramen, ate it and then passed out.

Next day Naruto was promptly woken up by soft insistent knocking on his door. Naruto woke up while yawning. He blinked his eyes to get rid of the sleep cluttered around his eyes and went to the door. Yawning one more time Naruto swung the door open only to see the Hokage standing at his doorstep. Naruto looked at the old man for a couple of seconds as he was hit by past happy memories. He looked at him as he was assaulted by how the sandaime had died. Naruto quickly turned around and walk into his room to hide his facial expressions.

"Naruto are you okay?" asked the third.

Naruto blustered up his courage and turned around to the hokage with a big smile on his face and said loudly, "I am fine old man! What are you doing here?"

The Hokage chuckled at Naruto's loud voice. He removed the smoking pipe from his mouth and said, "Well Naruto you did miss a day of your academy and your Iruka-sensei was really worried about you. We all didn't know where you went off to."

Naruto nearly face palmed himself in front of the saindaime. How could he have forgotten that when he was around 7 years old, he had started to attend the academy with Hinata and her batch. Naruto quickly checked the time to see that he only had half an hour left. He quickly hopped out of his orange jumpsuit, grabbed his towel and ran into the washroom. Naruto quickly popped his head back out the door, "Sorry old man, I am in a rush, can you please lock the door on your way out." With that said Naruto slammed the door shut and he went about doing his business in the washroom. The third hokage smiled at his antics and left the apartment again. Naruto quickly got ready for the academy, and he went outside. He noticed that a couple of anbus were on his tail again. He quickly turned into an alley and disappeared in a swirl of leaves. Ditching the anbu was soon turning into a sport for Naruto, it was just too amusing to give up.

Naruto arrived at the abandoned training ground number 108. There were pools of water all around. Naruto quickly formed a hand sign for his shadow clones and formed around 2000 of them again. He asked them all to go on the water and learn water walking to further increase his chakra control. He told them to dispel themselves at about noon. Naruto quickly checked his watch to see that it was ten minutes to seven in the morning. He quickly ran off towards the village leaving his clones to their own antics.

When Naruto arrived at the academy, he looked at the school structure in nostalgia. Naruto sighed wistfully at being able to come back as a child here again. He quickly shook his head and walked into the academy. As he went in he noticed the familiar structure and memories that he had long since forgotten came to the forefront of his mind. He watched as another version of him planted different pranks along the hallway and ran away while giggling in glee. There were some moments in the past where he had truly enjoyed himself. Naruto smiled softly and walked into the classroom. He saw that most of the kids were here. He looked up to find two empty seats, one was next to Sakura and the other was next to Hinata. Ino and Sakura as usual were arguing about who would get to be Sasuke-kun's girlfriend. Naruto looked over at Sasuke to see him brooding as usual. Naruto shook his head and climbed past that row towards Hinata's seat. She had been watching him as he came closer to her and she had slowly started to get red with each step that he came closer to her.

Naruto sat down next to Hinata and said, "Morning Hinata-chan," and in response, Hinata fainted on the desk. Naruto chuckled to himself as he looked up to see that the whole class had quieted down and were watching them.

Sakura was looking at him in a weird manner and yelled out, "What did you do to Hinata-chan you baka!" Naruto winced despite himself at the loud voice. He could never in all his years ever understand why he ever liked that girl.

Naruto shook his head and said, "I didn't do anything I just said hi to her and she fainted." Naruto went on to shrug his shoulders to show the depth of his confusion. Sakura looked at him in a weird manner for a while. She would dart looks at him and then look back at Ino and continue on with her argument. It wasn't long before Iruka-sensei came into the class.

"Alright class today we are going to start off with learning about physics, and then go on to learn about the different aspects of shinobi life. We will do this 10 o'clock in the morning, after which we will take a short break of 15 minutes and then go outside to work on your shuriken and kunai throwing abilities. We will do that till 11 o'clock and then we will have one on one taijutsu spars for half the class till 12 o'clock and then half an hour lunch and then the taijutsu spars of the rest of the class till 1:30 P.M. After which we will come to class for a 10 minute break and then perform the different techniques we have learned so far such as the Henge no jutsu and the regular clone." Iruka completed his monologue and started to lecture on physics and shinobi life aspects.

Naruto almost groaned out at the fact that he would have to do a regular clone, they were always his weakness. Then again, Naruto had never trained on chakra control this extensively, who knows maybe he just might be able to get it done. Naruto was lost in his own thoughts when the break came all of a sudden. Naruto went out and bought some food from the cafeteria lady, who didn't shoot him a distasteful look towards him today. Perhaps his little rant in the store had spread. Naruto quickly found himself a quiet spot underneath and ate his food. Naruto looked at his friends from his genin days and saw them for how they were when they were kids. It was kind of funny to see a laid back Shikamaru again. After Asuma's death, Shikamaru had gotten too serious with his life and while that was not a bad thing, his teacher's death was eating away at him on the inside. Naruto finished his snack as the teacher called them to gather around at a practice ground. Soon half the class had gone and taken their turn and so far Shino had the highest scores in the guys and Sakura had the highest score in the girls, although none of them were perfect. Soon Naruto's name was called. "Naruto take out five kunai and shuriken and toss them at the target. And this time try to get them on target at least," said Mizuki, who was the other teacher in his time, but also the traitor.

Naruto narrowed his eyes slightly at his teacher and said a quiet, "Hai Sensei." Naruto took out five kunai from his right leg weapon holster and he took out his shuriken from the left weapon holster. Naruto hefted them both together and flashed his hands forward quickly. The whole class quieted down as Naruto hit each and every single one of his projectiles on target. Everyone in the class was shocked, one more so than the others. 'How did the dobe manage to hit perfect targets in one shot, more so he did it with all the kunai and shuriken thrown at once rather than throwing them one by one,' thought Sasuke. Naruto smiled at the shocked look on his peers face and went back to sitting down underneath a tree and relaxing. The rest of the class stared at him for the next two minutes before Mizuki announced that Naruto got a perfect score and called Sasuke to take his turn. Sasuke, who was still looking disgruntled by what he saw, took out his kunai and shuriken and lashed them towards the wooden post with a zealous vigour. They all hit dead center just a Naruto's head. Sasuke formed a scowl on his face, shoved his hands in his pocket and walked off. Naruto was smiling to himself as he saw a chibi version of Sasuke pouting petulantly. Naruto prepared to doze off when he felt someone else sit next to him in the shade. He looked over to find Shikamaru getting comfortable to lie down to sleep already. Naruto imitated him and promptly went to sleep.

The next time Naruto woke up, he was looking at people fighting each other in taijutsu spars. Right now Kiba and Shino were fighting each other. Naruto yawned loudly and heard a munching sound next to him. He looked over to find that while he was taking a nap, Chouji had joined them as well. Chouji looked at Naruto quietly and tilted the bag of chips towards him. Naruto shrugged his shoulders and took a chip from him and bit on it crunchily. "This is the fifth spar that is happening right now," said Chouji in between eating his chips. "It's a few minutes till noon and break time, wanna come skip the class with Shika and me naruto?"

Naruto shook his head and said, "Nah I'll pass on it this time, maybe next time." Naruto got up from his spot as he saw Kiba hitting Shino squarely in the stomach and shoving him down while holding a kunai to his throat. The crowd around them applauded loudly and told them what a wonderful match it was. Mizuki called for a lunch break and the kids split apart to go ahead and get their own food. Naruto went towards the edge of the academy and hid behind a tree for a few minutes. He had felt the first of the memories coming through from the clones and didn't want to be in plain sight when the mental exhaustion took a toll on him. Naruto hunched down as all of a sudden he was put under and onslaught of memories as the clones dispelled themselves in a quick but efficient manner. Naruto stayed as such for a few minutes before finally standing up and breathing out a sigh.

"What's wrong with you dobe?" Naruto looked up to find Sasuke looking down at him from the tree branch.

Naruto quirked his eyebrow at him and asked, "What do you want Sasuke?"

Sasuke was shocked that Naruto was calling him by his name rather than calling him teme. "How did you get so good with your kunai and shuriken in a day dobe? And tell me why aren't you calling me a teme, I thought that was you way of getting yourself to feel slightly better since you are such a failure." The sneer on Sasuke looked quite funny to Naruto.

Naruto chuckled despite himself and said, "I donno Sasuke, it turns out that it isn't really had to hit something with kunai and shuriken once you spend just a little time on it." Sasuke felt his anger rising as he remembered all those hours he put into learning to hit the targets at a moment's notice and here was the dead last of the class how wasn't even making it out to be a big deal when he hit all the targets accurately, _at once_. "And also Sasuke, me calling you teme before was a way of me showing that I was your equal, now you are not longer my equal, you are absolutely beneath me."

Sasuke's eyes flashed dangerously as he stepped off the branch and came to land in front of Naruto. There was a blazing inferno alight in Sasuke's eyes. "Oh yeah dobe, well why don't we have a taijutsu spar right now and find out." Sasuke took a step towards Naruto, only for Naruto to step back while shaking his head. Sasuke smirked, "Are you scared after spouting off such stupidity. Don't worry I won't hurt you, _much._" Sasuke smiled cruelly while looking at Naruto.

Naruto was disturbed to say the least. Here was a 7 year old in front of him, who for some reason took as much pleasure in hurting others as much as possible. Naruto remembered Aslan's words where Aslan himself told him that there are some who are beyond even our help. While it is true that we must spend our time in helping as many people as possible, but in reality it is difficult to do so as reaching everyone is nearly impossible. Hence, rather than wasting time on an individual who would not change their ways, it is better to turn away from them and help other people who are willing to change but they do not have the capability of doing so. Naruto nodded his head slowly at Sasuke and said, "Why don't you go ask our Sensei's if they will pair you off with me in the taijutsu spars, then I would love to wipe the floor with you and show you exactly how inferior you are to me." Naruto said his piece and walked away. He left a fuming Sasuke in his wake that quickly did a u-turn and went to talk to Mizuki about pairing the two of them. Naruto watched as Mizuki quickly agreed while looking eager. Naruto snorted, 'it figures that the traitor wants to see the kyubi being put into its place, well he's going to be in for a nasty surprise' thought Naruto as he smiled tightly. Naruto spent the next fifteen minutes of the break sifting through his clone's memories and establishing a proper sequence to the memories. Between him and his clones he had figured out how to walk on water in a day. His chakra control was much better than it had ever been. It could also have to do with the fact that he started chakra control exercises early in age as his chakra reserves weren't as big as they used to be. But perhaps with his new control, it might as well be similar to it. Naruto sat underneath the tree in Indian fashion until Mizuki called for the lunch break to end and he called for Naruto and Sasuke to come in the center of the field.

Naruto opened his eyes to hear cheers from the crowd for Sasuke. And Sasuke being the attention craving freak that he was soaked it up as much as he could while looking borderline gloating at best. Naruto stood up from his position and walked towards Sasuke while listening to jeers being directed towards him. He heard many people telling him to give up and just quit now since Sasuke-kun was going to win. Naruto noticed how these children who were supposed to have a shred of innocence in them were missing it. It wasn't really their fault, it was their parents' fault who had taken away their choice of forming their own opinion of Naruto by telling them to stay away from him. Naruto thought back to his own timeline where he remembered how some of his friends at the time were severely ashamed of how they acted when they were kids. While the relationship between him and them had been mended properly, the scars of their childhood still remained. Naruto nodded to himself as he became even more convinced that leaving the village was the right decision. All the lingering doubts that he had evaporated. Naruto swivelled his eyes back to the Uchiha and settled into his Tiger-Taijutsu style while smiling in a grim manner. His left arm was extended forward while his right arm was held close to his chest. His left shoulder was pointing towards the opponent slightly while he was standing on the balls of his feet. Naruto took a deep breath and started to bounce from foot to foot on his toes. He dipped his hips a little lower than they were to stabilize his center of gravity more and raised up his arms like a guard.

As soon as Mizuki yelled for the fight to begin, Sasuke rushed forward towards him. Sasuke raised his left arm and tried to take a full swing at Naruto's head. Naruto leaned slightly towards the right and let the punch blow past his ear. He quickly used his legs to create some distance between him and Sasuke while turning around so that his front was facing Sasuke. Naruto and Sasuke had now switched their positions, Sasuke turned around angrily to face Naruto. He rushed him again with the same move, Naruto again let it move past him below his ear when Sasuke followed through with a kick this time. Naruto used his arms as a block again and circled around him once again. At this point Naruto's breathing was getting more and more quicker as he was establishing his rhythm. Sasuke looking pissed at this point approached Naruto and went on to try and lay a flurry of punches on him. Naruto blocked and dodge all the punches while circling around him again while smiling. Sasuke at this point was looking beyond pissed and he was a little bit winded as well. "Get ready Sasuke-chan, I am going to start attacking now!" yelled out Naruto as Sasuke snapped and moved towards him blinded by his anger.

Naruto dodge his first few punches and then solidly hit Sasuke in his face with his left hand. Sasuke how wasn't expecting a counter coming towards him was physically and mentally blown. Naruto used his back foot as a pivotal point and turned his body around while bringing his foot up and striking Sasuke in the face with it. Sasuke took the hit in his face and stumbled back while holding his nose. He removed his hand from his face to see that he had blood all over them. Naruto had managed to draw first blood. Sasuke now saw red and in a blind rage he just rushed forward not realizing the fact that Naruto was just toying with him. "There is no way that a dobe like you can fight the last member of the amazing Uchiha clan!" roared Sasuke as he rushed towards Naruto.

"Well the clan wasn't much if I am easily toying around with you right now isn't it," said Naruto while putting forth an eye smile. Sasuke snarled and unleashed a barrage of punches and kicks towards Naruto, but Naruto dodged them all and again circled around Sasuke, but instead of standing there this time, he hit Sasuke in his ribs twelve times in quick succession followed by a roundhouse kick to the base of his neck. When Naruto came back to his position he found that Sasuke was out cold on the ground. Naruto lowered his guard, and walked over to his spot underneath the tree and sat down again. He was going to go back to sleep when Kiba came bounding over to him.

"Naruto that was bloody brilliant man!" Naruto winced at Kiba's loud voice but refrained from saying anything rude. Naruto nodded his head along with whatever Kiba was saying at this point. Shino had followed them too now and he was looking at Naruto with a slight frown. Naruto smiled at him. Meanwhile all the girls and the teacher were crowded around Sasuke to make sure that he was alright. Naruto watched as Saukra and Ino yelled at the 'baka Naruto' for hurting their precious Sasuke-kun. Soon Sasuke was carried off to the infirmary and rest of the taijutsu spars were completed. The class was escorted back in to the academy where the regular clone test was going to commence. Naruto watched as Sasuke walked back into the classroom and glared at him. He had a dog collar around his neck; it seemed that Naruto's kick had sprained his neck muscles. Naruto chuckled to himself, 'serves the teme right.' All around the class Naruto felt the evil glares from all of Sasuke's fan girls. Iruka walked back into the classroom.

"Alright class I am going to call you all one by one and I want you to first use a henge no jutsu and then create a regular bunshin for me." Iruka then proceeded to call all the names in the class. Naruto watched as Hinata went up and did well in both the tasks.

"Good stuff Hinata-chan," said Naruto while smiling at her and curling his eyes upwards. Hinata blushed a deep red and began to hyperventilate. Naruto looked away from her lest she became faint and passed out. Naruto waited patiently until his name was called. He went up to Iruka and then he created a perfect henge of the third hokage. Iruka-sensei circled around him a couple of times before concluding that his henge was fantastic. Naruto nodded at the praise and took it in a stride. This made Iruka slightly concerned as usually Naruto would be lapping up all the attention given to him. For the next part, Naruto closed his eyes and limited the amount of his chakra as much as possible. He waited to reach that threshold to which dropped his chakra down to. He held the chakra in his body for a bit at that level and then proceeded to form the clone.

A burst of smoke appeared next to Naruto. Naruto and the others in class looked at the smoke, many expecting the dead last to form a faulty clone but to their and Naruto's surprise, a perfectly regular clone was visible. Naruto waved his hand towards the clone and passed it through it to have it dissipate into the air. Naruto put on a big smile on his face as this was just proof of the fact that he had managed to improve his chakra in leaps and bounds.

"Congratulations Naruto, you finally did it!" exclaimed Iruka. Naruto smiled at Iruka-sensei while the rest of the class mumbled about how the dobe had finally gotten the regular clone down. It was something that took the rest of them at best a few days to get down. But the rest of the class didn't have reserves as immense as Naruto, and Iruka knew that. So Iruka knew exactly how big an accomplishment it was for Naruto.

Naruto on the other hand was musing about the fact that his chakra control had improved past what he expected. Naruto was happy with what he had already accomplished. Perhaps it was time to move on to some of his more complicated techniques, starting with his father's jutsu. Although Naruto was caught in a conundrum as he didn't have the money required to buy the balloons that he needed. Although he was sure that he wouldn't need as many of them this time around. Then again if he wanted to increase the speed of his training with clones perhaps it would be smart to have more balloons to do his exercise. With his mind made up Naruto decided to ask Iruka sensei to come to the market with him in the evening so that he can get the required materials. Naruto was brought out of his musings rudely by Sakura when she decided to walk up to him and punch him into the ground.

"Naruto you baka!" yelled Sakura while waving her fist in front of Naruto's face as he got up off the ground. "What did you think you were doing when you injured Sasuke-kun like that."

Naruto looked at her and asked, "Are you mad at me for beating someone in a taijutsu spar in which even the teacher felt that nothing lethal was being done, as Mizuki-sensei clearly stood by while I beat up pretty boy here." Naruto looked at her calmly while his face was devoid of emotion.

"Th-th-that's beside the point. The fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter what you do you baka! You will always be second to my dear Sasuke-kun so accept it!" Sakura finished her tirade with a smug look on her face and by pointing a finger at him. Naruto who was meanwhile cleaning up his clothes decided to take a leaf out of Kakashi's book.

Naruto looked up to see Sakura standing there with her finger pointing at him. "Ne Sakura, did you say something," asked Naruto while smiling and tilting his head to the side. Naruto heard something hit the floor to see that Sakura had fallen headfirst on the floor with her butt in the air. Overall it seemed like an awkward posture. Before Sakura could figure out what had just happened Naruto quickly stepped to the side of her prone figure and walked up to Iruka-sensei and told him that he would meet him at the market entrance in the evening at 7 instead of their usual rendezvous at the ramen stand. Naruto quickly left the room behind him while a distant roar of Naruto could be heard from behind him. Despite himself, Naruto snickered in the quiet of the night as he approached the previous training ground again. Naruto again went about creating 2000 clones and had them practice water walking. While the clones were busy he practiced his taijutsu again only this time he tried to perform the various forms in a more quicker manner. He managed to tire himself out an hour before the clones were supposed to be done. Naruto spent the last hour of training on muscle building exercise.

With his evening training now complete, Naruto went to the entrance of the Market place to wait for Iruka-sensei. It wasn't long before the chunin came in his view. Naruto quickly jumped off of the crate of box on which he was sitting on to wave his sensei forward. Iruka waved at Naruto and said, "What did you want to do here in the market Naruto? I thought we were going to Ichiraku's tonight."

"We will think about going there after Iruka-sensei but first I need to buy something and unfortunately I don't have enough money for it so could you help me out?" asked Naruto sincerely. Naruto saw Iruka-sensei pause for a moment, it made him press his argument even further. "And also if you are there then maybe they might sell it to me without causing any problems."

Iruka nodded slowly and said "Alright alright Naruto I will help you buy whatever it is that you think you need." Iruka smiled at Naruto as the boy got excited again and quickly dragged him over to a shop. When Iruka saw the merchandise he paled in colour. "Naruto what are we doing here?"

"Well sensei, I need 200 of these balloons made of thin rubber and I need about a 100 of these balloons made of this thicker rubber," said Naruto while looking up at Iruka in an innocent manner.

"Naruto this wouldn't happen to have anything to do with what your next prank is right?" asked Iruka in a slightly flustered manner.

"Of course not sensei, I need it for other purposes, don't worry I promise you that I won't use these balloons on anyone or in any prank," said Naruto in what he hoped was his most sincere voice.

Iruka nodded his head slowly and asked the shop owner to complete the order. Iruka then helped Naruto pick up his boxes and move them to his apartment. Iruka asked Naruto continuously as to what he was using the balloons for but Naruto just kept on stating that it's a secret with his mischievous smile. Naruto and Iruka moved the boxes in Naruto's room and then had ramen as their meal. After Iruka left, Naruto went to sleep as he was completely exhausted by the day's activities. Naruto set his alarm for 5 in the morning as he planned on waking up early tomorrow to practice more.

The next morning found Naruto back again at the training ground with lots of water. He sat down with an ink pot and a scroll brush. Naruto stripped down to his underclothes and proceeded to put on the seals that he had been using to enhance himself during the three year training period away from Konoha. Naruto placed seals for suppressing his muscles as well as his chakra reserves and his control. Training under these conditions would allow Naruto to become stronger more quickly. The seals on his muscles acted as weights for him as the more chakra that they sucked away with the aid of the chakra suppression seals, the heavier they became. So in a sense Naruto's muscle and chakra suppression seals worked in a network where the chakra suppression seals would force a constant amount of chakra into the muscle restraint seals. The best thing about these seals was the fact that the muscle restraint seals were capable of holding onto that chakra for a prolonged period of time. Whenever the seals are released, the chakra in the seals would flow back into Naruto. Of course this boost will be temporary and would not increase his reserves in any way but it would provide him with much needed chakra in a tight situation. Also consider the fact that the seals would force him to increase his chakra control. All in all, Naruto was headed towards a stronger version of himself, a version that had large reserves of chakra, with chakra control that was on par with a medic on a good day and muscles that would be strong enough to rival that of the green beast of Konoha. Naruto was satisfied with this and vowed to himself that only after he completed these situations adequately will he move forward to the next part of his plan.

The major drawback of this plan was that now Naruto was restricted to working with only 250 clones to do his training. But with that said, within a month Naruto would have had completed over 10 years worth of basic training only. With a determined mind set, Naruto got to work.

**And that's it for the first chapter; let me know what you think about this chapter and what you think is going to happen in the future.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters nor do I seek to make any profit from this story. The only thing that belongs to me is the plot.**

**Thank you for the kind reviews guys. To those of you who added me on their favourite author and alert list, thank you very much as well. It is a rare feeling of accomplishment that you feel when you see that genuine people out there are actually appreciating your work. **

****It is shocking how while I was beginning this chapter there were about 4 people who had put this story on their alert and their favourite lists and now in only a few hours since posting the story, the count has jumped to nearly 30s. Thanks for all the support guys! **

****Special thanks to: Rose Tiger, Blue Fox Reaper, dbtiger, oniix, hinanarushion, fanfictioner, guest, lightningblade49 and Finalreason thanks for leaving a review guys, it made my day!**

**Chapter 2: The Beginning of a Journey**

Sarutobi Hiruzen stood at the edge of his office while looking out through the window. He took out his smoking pipe and lit it alight. He was thinking on the changes that had happened in the past month concerning one loud mouthed ninja. Sarutobi was worried about Naruto. From all the reports that he was getting from his anbu as well as his teachers, he learned that Naruto had apparently managed to become the strongest in his class over a month. With any other child, Sarutobi would have thought that the child showed such improvement through their hard work. But Naruto, he was a special case. It wasn't that Sarutobi did not believe in Naruto's ability to become strong on his own, but rather a sudden change in things was questionable due to Naruto's tenant. Could the Kyubi be affecting the child and causing him to improve his strength in such manner.

Sarutobi thought back to the time when he was in the council meeting last week. Many of the civilian councillors were in an uproar regarding an incident that had happened a month ago. Apparently one of the store owners had tried to sell Naruto expired food at the retail price and Naruto had caught him red handed. Of course the same civilian councillors were unable to come forth with that certain tidbit; he had to depend on his anbu to provide him with the details of the incident. What Naruto said was absolutely correct; there was no denying the truth behind his words. As the chief of a village, Sarutobi understood it better than anyone else exactly how ignorance and mule headed thinking is responsible for disrupting the city on various levels. Sarutobi sighed to himself thinking about how the villagers had used all their resources and their intellect in circumventing his law. If only such effort could have been placed towards the village then perhaps their village would have been at an even higher standing and on the off chance Naruto would have been able to have a proper childhood instead of what he is stuck with right now.

Sarutobi sighed once again as he looked at the Nidaime Hokage's face. He remembered his arguments with the reigning hokage at the time. He remembered yelling and railing at the Nidaime for he let the councilman do as they pleased. He remembered when he always questioned the fact as to why it is that you have to harbour even the worst of your citizens in your walls and why you must protect them as well. From what he understood in his youth, some people were just trouble makers from the beginning. They always caused problems and whenever there was a problem, they would be the ones adding oil to the fire by stating that they never supported the cause of the problem and the other had been fools for actively supporting it. Sarutobi still remembered the Nidaime Hokage's words at the time. "Pretend that the village is one big family Hiruzen. If the village is a family then me as the Hokage would be the Father of said family and all of you would be my children. Whenever a child of yours is acting petulant, you scold it, discipline it if it is necessary, but at the end of the day you still love them all the same regardless of which one is your favourite or which one is not. I hate the Uchiha with a passion since it is a cursed clan, yet I allow them to reside in the village. I even made them the chief of Konoha's police force. I know that this might have separated them from us but in the end, the fact is that I did something for them even though I didn't want to. Why you may ask Sarutobi? Well it's simple. It is because this is my responsibility. It is my responsibility as the Hokage of this village to look out for the people residing within regardless of what malice I might harbour for them. And we as Hokages' are supposed to be sticklers to responsibility."

Sarutobi still remembered the stoic face that the Nidaime hokage had on his face. Sarutobi sighed once again and looked out towards the village with troubled thoughts. What he wouldn't give to have another take his position right now instead of waiting for the council to appoint another Hokage. Sarutobi's thoughts veered back to Naruto again. Naruto had for some reason been able to detect the anbu that were selected to trail him and he had not only detected them but he had also been successful in losing their trail. Sarutobi chuckled as he remembered the recent betting pool that had started up in the anbu headquarters. Apparently it had become a sport for the anbu men and women. Requests came on their behalf to send out different individuals instead of the ones that Sarutobi usually decided on. Sarutobi chuckled to himself in good humour as he thought about how Naruto was able to keep the anbu on their toes whether he was trying to pull a disappearing act or a prank.

Sarutobi still remembered the time when a little more than 3 months ago, Naruto had decided to paint the Hokage's mountain in weird designs. He had roared with laughter when he saw that all the different anbu and chunins running after him, after being affronted, were not able to even catch up to him. What a merry chase it had been, Naruto had led them around with their noses for two hours before walking into his office as if he owned the place. Sarutobi's mirth slowly died out as he heard a knock at his door. "Please come in!"

"Hokage-sama, Naruto-kun is here to see you as you requested," said his secretary.

"Yes, please send him in right away and thank you," responded Sarutobi as he walked back to his desk and put away his pipe. Sarutobi waited patiently for Naruto to enter his office.

Naruto walked into the Hokage's office and yelled loudly, "Hey old man! Whatcha been upto?" Naruto put both his hands behind his head as he walked in carelessly.

Sarutobi pushed down a grin to a smile as Naruto entered his office in his usual rambunctious manner. Sarutobi noted that Naruto had changed his dressing style. He was dressed in a dark green full sleeved t-shirt that had orange stripes running down the two sleeves. His arms were wrapped in bandages till his wrists. Naruto was wearing grey shorts that extended way past his knees and his usual ninja sandals. His legs were wrapped up in bandages as well. Overall the outfit on him looked really loose, as if when Naruto bought it he had expected himself to grow tall all of a sudden. Sarutobi made himself comfortable as Naruto sat across from him and launched into one of his tales of how his week had been. It was good to see that while Naruto had grown up all of a sudden, not everything about him was adult like. Sarutobi smiled and listened to Naruto talk for the next two hours.

It was 6 in the evening and Naruto had found himself strolling along the market place again. He had just come out of his meeting with the old man. He needed to go to the old man as he needed to borrow some money that he would definitely return back to the old man someday. Maybe he would return it to him after he had saved his life after the chunin exams. The thoughts of what was to come reminded Naruto of why he was here in the first place. He sped off towards the clothing store with a determined stride.

Naruto stood inside the store as he pursued the different cloaks that he was looking for. He had bought his current wardrobe while keeping in mind what his older body looked like roughly. He needed his clothes to fit him when he finally used the Uzumaki seal on his body to change what he looked like. While the change wasn't permanent, it would remain as long as the seal remained on his body.

Naruto browsed through the different colours of cloaks that were available in different colours and designs. He stopped at one that was coloured a dark green, the colour of leaves. For some reason it reminded him of Gai and Lee too much. Naruto put the cloak back on the rack with a slight disappointment. He went around looking for different designs until he landed on a dark blue cloak. It was very dark in colour, almost impossible to tell it was blue unless held in the right light. Without proper lighting it almost looked black instead. Naruto took hold of it and felt the smooth material slide along his fingertips. At the edge of the cloak, little swirls were drawn in with a few leaves sewn in as well. Naruto thought to himself that he would remove the leaves later on just to make sure that no connection is made between the cloak and him down the line. He quickly went to a changing room while avoiding other people. He transformed into a random person with dark hair and dark eyes. Naruto tried to look inconspicuous as he didn't wish to draw attention to himself. Kami knows how many times he had come close to getting into a brawl with a store owner just because they tried to trick the demon brat into spending more money on a bogus item. Naruto quickly went to the register and paid his money.

While Naruto was strolling around in the street he kept on thinking back to how the last month had been for him. He had finally managed to complete his basic training and he had to say that it went really well. Naruto now had a very nice chakra control. Naruto realized the difference between him now and the him that resided in the future. If you disregard the number of jutsus in his arsenal, Naruto felt that currently he was a lot stronger than he was in the future. His good chakra control, while not perfect, had allowed for him to stop wasting excess chakra like he used to do so previously. It was to such an extent that now Naruto could create up to 5 thousand clones at once and that is saying something as before in the future, due to his bad control, 4 thousand clones had been the maximum of what he could have made at any time. Also the chakra restraint seals were on the whole time for him so his chakra reserves and his stamina must be a lot higher than what it looks like. Suffice to say that Naruto was finally realizing his dream of becoming an awesome ninja. Naruto felt that his called for a celebration so he headed off towards Ichiraku's ramen. That was the one thing that he was going to miss after leaving Konoha the most.

Naruto walked towards the ramen stand with his bags in tow behind him. Naruto had spent money on some weapons to get some decent kunai and shuriken for once instead of the dulled or the imbalanced ones. Turns out using transformation jutsu allows you to buy merchandise like a proper person if you didn't wish to get into a hassle with them. But over the last month, Naruto had gotten into many fights with store owners. Not physical fight but more of a verbal spar. And each time he left the store owners feeling guilty about what it was that they were doing. Naruto had a plan and that plan consisted of mollifying the populace of Konoha by being aggressive towards them. Nowadays when he walked around the street, the number of glares had been reduced by quite a bit, they were mostly replaced by those of fear as he had used the specific terminology of "letting his tenant out to play" if they didn't start treating him like a proper person and giving him respect. While most of the people were now afraid of him and were afraid to show their hate in an open manner, there was, to a slight degree, respect visible in some of the faces in the street. When he asked one such individual of why they didn't fear or hate him, that person had said that some people are able to appreciate other people who are capable. In a manner of speaking, Naruto's manipulation of the populace had many people think that there was more to Naruto than what meets the eye. Naruto was glad that he had caused such unrest in Konoha, as when he left now, there won't be many civilian councillors hounding the hokage to bring him back. Also it would be a plus if the civilian council was able to suppress or pressure the military council beneath the hokage into avoiding Naruto altogether after he leaves.

Naruto whistled a merry tune as he hefted his bag of sealing scrolls that contained two months worth of wood, weapons, clothes, and some of his meagre possessions. Tonight was the night that he was planning on leaving. Naruto entered the ramen stand to find that it was empty and Teuchi-san was wiping up the counter and cleaning it away.

"Are you closing early tonight old man?"

Teuchi Ichiraku turned around to spot his number one customer standing there at his doorstep with a bag in his hand. Teuchi smiled at seeing Naruto after a while, as the boy had all but disappeared for the past month. "Naruto! Where have you been for the past few days. You know Ayane-chan was getting quite upset that you haven't come around for a while now."

Naruto smiled as he scratched the back of his head after listening to Teuchi-san. "Sorry about that old man, I have just been caught up in my training for the past few days hehe. So what are you doing old man, why are you closing up shop so early today?"

Teuchi smiled at Naruto while putting his coat on. "If you had come by sometimes Naruto then you would know that we are closing shop early today because it's Ayane-chan's birthday today. We are going to go home and celebrate it. Come along Naruto, we planned on inviting you through person but when you didn't show up we sent a mail through the mailman to your house. But looking at you now in this way, it seems that the mail never made it to you huh?"

Naruto's face took on a glum look as he realized what had happened. Turns out not everyone was afraid of him yet and some were even ready to act on their hate through petty means, even if it meant withholding Naruto's mail from him. Naruto shook his head off these types of thoughts and looked to see the old man closing the stand up. Naruto made a split decision and created two clones. The clones nodded at him and ran away. When Teuchi-san turned around Naruto was standing there ready for him to lead the way. Naruto walked the rest of the way with muddled thoughts. He had planned on meeting Hinata-chan after he was done eating ramen.

_Flashback_

Naruto had made an obvious effort to get close to the pale eyed beauty. But every time he said something to her, she would faint right away. Naruto decided that this shy attitude had to go. So one day he had asked Hinata to meet her on the top of the Hokage Mountain. They had met with each other on the fourth's head. Naruto had then made Hinata stand at the edge of mountain and walked away from her. He told her that if she fainted right now after hearing what he said then she would fall down and die. Hinata had looked really scared when he had said that, although Naruto had a feeling that it wasn't the imminent death that scared her but rather what he was about to say. Naruto had of course taken some precautions by having a clone stick to the side of the mountain to catch her in case she fell.

Naruto had then proceeded to cup his hands and yell out, "I like you Hinata-chan will you date me?" Hinata's reaction was instantaneous. She went through several shades of red, each one darker than its previous ones before she started swaying back and forth in the wind. Naruto yelled at her that if she isn't able to stop herself from fainting then she would fall off the cliff and then she would never get to date him. That had put a steely eyed glint in Hinata's eyes as she steadied herself at the edge of the cliff. She was still unsteady on her feet so Naruto decided to give her another incentive. "Hey Hinata-chan I was planning on having a couple of kids too you know, with you, after we get married later on of course." Naruto was full out grinning at this point. A sound similar to 'eep' escaped Hinata's mouth as she started to sway even more wildly than before and was on the verge of fainting. "Then again Hinata-chan if you were to fall off and die, then I don't know maybe I will finally give a date to Ino-chan as she has just recently jumped from being Sasuke's fan girl to my fan girl. And you know she is kind of pretty with her blonde hair and blue eyes." Naruto was trying really hard to control his mirth now. At Ino's name being mentioned Hinata stabilized completely. She had a calm look on her face as she looked at him. Before Naruto realized what happened she had dashed in front of him and slapped him on the cheek. Naruto stood their dazed for a few seconds. He turned his head back to look at Hinata as she had warring emotions on her face. Her angry look was being replaced by one of horror.

"Oh my god I just slapped Naruto-kun," said a dazed Hinata. Hinata turned towards him with tears in her eyes. "I-I-I am so so-so-sorry N-n-n-aruto-kun. I don't know what happened to-"

Hinata was cut off as Naruto leaned in and captured her lips in a soft kiss. He felt Hinata go rigid in his arms. Naruto held her in his arms as she slowly leaned in to the soft kiss. When Naruto broke the kiss off and moved his head away, he saw Hinata with the cutest expression on her face. Even though she was a child, Naruto felt something twinge within his heart. He shrugged the feeling off and told her that it was alright. They had a long chat that night. After Naruto had gotten his second chance he had vowed to himself that he would do whatever he possibly could to undo the damage that the Hyuga elders and her father had done.

Naruto sighed as he thought about how quickly they had gotten together afterwards. He couldn't believe how much of an idiot he was. He could have had the type of companionship that he was looking for right away if he had only looked towards Hinata instead of jumping around Sakura. Naruto shook his head exasperatedly as he kept on reminiscing about how stupid he was, I mean to be told that you are stupid is one thing but to actually realize that you were one takes a big blow to a person's morale. Well all the successful people always said that in order to solve a problem you have to acknowledge the fact that a problem exists first. Naruto for the life of him could not remember who it was that said that. Perhaps it was the first hokage, who knows. Naruto shook himself from his thoughts as they arrived at Teuchi-san's house.

Before they could step into the house, Naruto quickly made a clone and dispelled it. Teuchi-san looked at him in a confused manner and Naruto just shook his head and asked him to wait a minute. As soon as the minute was up, a dark green and grey blur stopped next to them. They looked up to find one of the two clones that Naruto sent out. The clone was holding a bouquet of flowers. He quickly handed over the flowers to Naruto and the change. Naruto pocketed the change and turned towards Teuchi-san as the clone dashed off towards the other clone, he had his instructions. Teuchi-san chuckled to himself while muttering about flashy ninja.

Naruto walked in to see a party in full swing. Quite a few people were there already, although Naruto didn't know any of them since most of them were civilians. Naruto felt slightly awkward as he was present in his ninja gear while the other were dressed up in a party manner. They looked around and saw Ayane-chan hurrying towards them with a big smile on her face that lit up her eyes. "Father, what took you guys so long, I thought you weren't going to make it in time for your own daughter's birthday."

"It wasn't my fault, Naruto came in late so it was his fault. If you want to get mad at anyone get mad at him," chuckled Teuchi. "And anyways, why would I be late to a party, especially one that has some really good sake." Ayane-chan laughed with her dad while slapping his shoulder lightly. Teuchi moved off towards the food counter leaving the two kids alone.

Naruto smiled to himself watching their antics. He felt a slight pang in his heart thinking about how he would never get that with his parents. Naruto stepped forward and all but shoved the flowers into Ayane's hands, "Happy birthday Aayne-obachan! You are getting older now!" Naruto smiled cheekily at her.

Ayane felt a slight vein throbbing at her top right corner of her forehead. She accepted the flowers from Naruto and then proceeded to hit him in the head for good measure. Naruto was staring at her face one second and the next second the floor was zooming up at him at a very fast pace. Naruto put a hand out and luckily stopped the fall. "Baka Naruto! I am not getting that old yet," Ayane-chan blew the hair out of her face. She visibly collected herself and pets her hair to make sure that no tendrils were escaping her eloquent bun. When Naruto got up, he found himself getting crushed in a hug. "Thanks for the flowers Naruto-kun and thanks for coming." Naruto just smiled at her as they went about chatting. Naruto noticed the glares from around the room being directed towards him as well but he ignored them. He wasn't about to ruin someone else's birthday party. Especially today since this was his last day in the village.

Naruto only had one remorseful thought about leaving today; he wouldn't be able to have that last bite of the ramen that he loved so much. Naruto walked around, chatting with people who weren't glaring at him and mostly enjoying the juice by the food bar. Naruto was walking around the food to see what he can have next when he spotted a section with steaming ramen. A huge grin broke out on Naruto's face as he made a beeline for the ramen. All in all, Naruto was having a great time and he had managed to clean away a third of the ramen available at the party. He soon had other kids around his age all competing with him to see who could eat more ramen. It got to the point where Teuchi-san had to go back inside and start making new ramen. Talk about cooking in the middle of your daughter's party. Although, Naruto knew that Teuchi-san wouldn't be upset with him and no matter how haughty Ayane-chan acted she took it all in a stride. It was as she liked to say, if he wasn't a little bit weird at all times then she would have to call anbu all the time to make sure that it really was him. Naruto was having a grand time when he felt the memories of a clone crash into him. He saw himself talking to Hinata, and decided that it was time to go now.

Naruto looked at his surrogate family one last time before making his way towards the door with a dejected look on his face. Naruto was just pulling on his sandals when Ayane-chan came into the foyer followed by Teuchi-san. "Naruto-kun where are you going? Aren't you going to stay for a little while more?"

Naruto answered Ayane-chan, "I would love to stay Ayane-chan, but I have to get going as I still have to meet up with Hinata." Naruto wasn't able to stop a slight blush from spreading on his face. He hoped to Kami that Ayane-chan didn't catch that, but unfortunately Kami had a sick sense of humour. "Are you blushing Naruto-kun? Oh Kami, is there something you wish to share Naruto-kun?" Ayane-chan reached across and latched on to Naruto's left hand while smiling like a Cheshire cat.

Naruto scratched the back of his head and try to sneak a way out of it. But unfortunately he couldn't think of one and just mumbled, "Hai I am meeting up with Hinata-chan, but there is nothing happening, not what you are thinking at least."

Teuchi decided to give Naruto a break, "Well Naruto it was nice having you over and thank you for coming to Ayane-chan's birthday party. I had hoped that some of my guests would be more receptive towards you and I did everything I could to have them be civil. But unfortunately I couldn't do much. So I am deeply sorry for that. And you have my thanks for being the better man and ignoring the jerks in there. If I knew who they were I wouldn't have allowed them to step a single foot inside this house. I hope that you don't hold this against us Naruto."

Naruto looked down and made a split decision to let them know that he is going away for a while. Although, he would have to do it in a way so that the Sandaime wouldn't find out about it. "Old man, thank you very much for inviting me. In fact I am grateful to you for many of the things that you have done for me. Not many people have been kind to me in all my life here. For that I am forever grateful to you." Naruto at this point bowed down very low. He was nearly parallel to the floor when he was bowing to them. Teuchi-san was looking concerned a little at this point. "And Ayane-chan, you have been that older sister that I would have loved to have and found in you. You people have been the only family that I have ever known and for that I am truly grateful to you." Ayane-chan at this point ran over and gave him a hug. After dislodging himself from her, Naruto continued. "I am going away for a few days. Call it a training session if you will. No need to get alarmed old man, Hokage-sama already knows about this and he has approved of it. The chances of something going wrong on this training mission are absolutely zero, but all the same I wish to let you two know exactly how much you mean to me."

Ayane-chan at this point was holding him to her chest and quite literally bawling her eyes out on top of his head. They stood there like that like a small tightly knit family. It was a fleeting feeling that Naruto had, as he never knew what it was like to have family, but it was decidedly a good feeling. Maybe he could have that someday with Hinata-chan. Naruto felt himself blush again. He extracted himself from his pseudo-family and wished them goodbye and telling the ramen chef that he would be back again to eat his delicious ramen. Of course Naruto neglected to mention when it is that he would be back but he needed to say something to them as he knew that they were one of the few people that were going to be heartbroken at him leaving the village. Naruto said his goodbyes and left their house.

He quickly hopped onto the closest tree and made for the place near the edge of the village where Hinata-chan was waiting for him. Just the thought of her nowadays brought a smile to his face. Naruto subconsciously increased his pace as he was eager to see her again. It seemed that no matter how much of her he saw, he never got tired of her. In fact the yearning only increased and came back with an even more pressing need to see her. Naruto quickly walked in to the clearing by the wall. Naruto's clone saw him and released himself, Naruto felt himself being assaulted by his clone's memories of its time together with Hinata-chan. Damn the clone had sneaked in a couple of kisses with Hinata-chan, does that mean he was jealous of himself. Naruto shook off the images and walked up to Hinata. He walked up to her and pulled in a surprised Hinata into a hug and buried his face in her neck while lifting her around the waist. Over the course of the last month, Naruto had strictly regulated his diet to make sure that he received all the nutrients that he would need and the result had been instantaneous. Although it might have a little to do with the kyubi. Naruto now stood about 4 feet and 11 inches tall. This was very tall for someone that was only a little above 7 years of age. Naruto himself felt good about this height as this time around he wasn't picked on as much by the other guys dues to his stunted growth. Naruto removed his arms from around Hinata and smiled down at her softly.

Hinata's pale eyed gaze looked at him as she too stared at him with a small smile on her face. There was a slight blush in her cheeks but gone were the days when the girl would be too nervous to act properly around him. Naruto had gotten around to training with Hinata-chan during the last month. He had helped her quite a bit in her confidence issue and she had helped him by teaching him the basics behind the jyuken taijutsu techniques. It was the most interesting part of the day for him every day.

For the last month, Naruto followed his schedule like a blinded devout follower of a god. He went about creating his large army of clones and had then further practiced the chakra control techniques. This was important to him as due to the chakra restraint seals and his huge growth spurt, the Kyubi's chakra was leaking through the seal at a much faster pace. The leaked chakra would fuse with his and grow his reserves quite a bit, so if he were to stop practicing his chakra control even for a day then he would find himself back to where he was. Naruto felt that this was a bit of a disadvantage, but he noticed that the more he worked on his chakra control the more his control was increasing. Even though his reserves size was increasing, his chakra control was steadily increasing. He could almost make a second shadow clone with only wasting about fifteen percent of his chakra needed for the technique. This was a huge plus in his book as before it would have taken him at least forty percent of wasted chakra before being able to form a single shadow clone technique.

Naruto had also kept up with his tiger taijutsu style training. He had all the basic forms memorized by heart and he had been working on increasing his strength and stamina through basic workouts. He would run laps in the morning as fast as he could while he would spar with two of his clones with his muscle restraint seals amped up to the max. The pace at which he was increasing was mind boggling. In a little over a month he had been able to match Lee without his weights. Naruto knew that this was abnormal, the only reason he was able to get this far was due to the kyubi's healing chakra. 'Thank Kami that the stupid fox resides in me, otherwise who knows how I would have finished my planned training,' thought Naruto. After about a week of this he had gone on to start working on the rasengan.

Now the rasengan had been a pleasant surprise for Naruto, as it turned out that the only step he had to work on was the second step to generate the power. It seems the first and third step were more of puzzles that you needed to solve, and once you did, you can perform them for an infinity number of times. Naruto had rejoiced to himself as he already knew the answers to those puzzles from before. But the lack of challenge from the rasengan frustrated the blonde ninja instead of pleasing him; hence he went about trying to master the rasengan one handed. That had been a difficult journey for him, but one that had gotten simpler when he had invited Hinata-chan to train with him.

Naruto had used the excuse of having Hinata-chan training with him in order to spend time with her. Naruto knew that his time in the village was limited, but he really wanted to spend time with Hinata, as she was also one of the few people in the village that actually cared about him as a person at this time. Naruto had started off their training by teaching Hinata-chan the shadow clone technique. It only took Hinata a couple of tries to get it, and this stumped Naruto to no tomorrow as it had taken him more than a couple of hours to get it down and here was someone that had done it in less than a few minutes. Hinata had cocked her head with a question in her eyes when she had seen Naruto's confusion. When Naruto had informed her of the difficulty rank of the technique, only then did Hinata realized what it was that she had accomplished. Only after the realization she had tried to vehemently deny that she must have done something wrong, until Naruto decided to shut her up by kissing her softly on the lips. It had soon turned into his favourite pass time exercise of shutting up Hinata-chan by kissing her. When Hinata was quite, Naruto had gone on to shower praises on her making her blush even more.

It had turned into common practice for them to train together afterwards. Naruto and Hinata would both form a clone and send it to the academy to learn whatever was being taught there; at least in Hinata's case the clone learned the academy work. Naruto's clone just went to sleep as he didn't bother with the stuff being taught about being a good shinobi. One afternoon Naruto had gotten his clone's memories back and he learned that the clone had gotten into an altercation with Iruka-sensei about being a good shinobi. Naruto's clone had apparently ended the argument with a simple, "The only shinobi rule that is important is that shinobi at all times should be loyal to their friends, families and their village. They should always make their decisions based on the well being of these three categories. Anyone who does so is not a shinobi but just a fool with too few tools in his brain. Anything such as revenge, justice or vengeance is for idiots, only those three are important and only those three should be kept in mind when acting." Of course his comment had drawn the ire of the last Uchiha. Leading to a bunch of demands of spar with me and ya de da de da. Naruto's clone had become fed up and released itself in the middle of the class, causing for many of the students and Iruka-sensei to become confused. Well let's just say that the aftermath of that incident was not pretty as it is quite hard to explain to your teacher how you managed to learn a jutsu that is supposedly forbidden and sealed at all times.

Thinking about the last Uchiha had sent Naruto on a spiral and he had come to realize that the older Uchiha, Itachi, was not at fault for whatever happened in the Uchiha massacre. He did what he had to, but no matter how they try to adorn it and make it glimmer in front of the council, they would never accept a missing-nin back amongst them. While the shinobi council might be slightly lenient towards him only to bring him back and breed him to get as many kids as possible out of him. Naruto shuddered at some of the archaic laws that were still in effect in the shinobi world. But still Itachi remained one of those things that he wanted to avoid happening in the world. If he was supposed to become a leader of sorts for the world then he would need to look at all the problems that it had and think of a way out of those problems. Gah! Thinking always made Naruto's head hurt. Naruto shook his head and recapped the last of his training days with Hinata-chan.

Hinata-chan had quickly gotten hang of the shadow clone technique and while her reserves weren't great, her chakra control was all but excellent. She could perhaps begin her medic training right now and excel in it. With utilising her chakra control to its limits, Hinata-chan was able to create about 50 shadow clones and had them practice the technique that Naruto was trying to teach Hinata-chan. Whenever Hinata asked Naruto about the technique and who taught him, Naruto just shrugged his shoulders in an awkward manner and said that he invented it on his own. While Hinata knew that Naruto was withholding information from her, she let it go and asked the clones to focus on their balloons filled with water. Naruto and his clones had managed to perform the feat with one hand a week ago, and after that it was easy to get things done as the second step was just about straining his chakra coils to be able to hold as much chakra as possible and the third step was something that he already knew how to do. Naruto felt quite accomplished when he managed to create the rasengan with just his one hand. While Hinata was working on her rasengan techniques, he had the clones learn the unique way of the Hyuga's taijutsu called the jyuken.

All in all, Naruto had managed to complete his rasengan while even managing to teach it to Hinata-chan. She was getting used to being called genius and prodigy by Naruto at all times now and it did wonders to her confidence. She was an able kunoichi of the leaf now, no longer was she weak and afraid. She felt strong. Naruto had also gotten the basics of the jyuken down, although he found that the jyuken strikes of dispelling chakra was still difficult for him as it required a very precise chakra control. In fact Naruto's vibrant chakra at point of contact had given Hinata an idea to manipulate her chakra in the jyuken in a manner that would not only close the chakra pressure points but it would rip them apart, leaving that part of the body useless until it was healed. Hinata hoped that she hadn't created something bad, but as usual the thoughts flew out of her mind as Naruto had kissed her senseless and showered her with praises yet again. Naruto smiled at that last make out session and mentally shook himself out of his haze to look at Hinata-chan pressed against his side while they rested against a tree. Naruto shifted around so that he could find a more comfortable way to sit against the tree, in response Hinata snuggled even closer to Naruto's chest and let out a soft content sigh.

Naruto looked up at the sky to see that the last rays of sunlight were gone and replaced by the bright moonlight. It must have been at least an hour since he left Ayane-chan's party. Naruto sighed as he knew that he would have to leave in a bit. He shifted and pushed Hinata slightly so that she would get up. Hinata just grumbled and burrowed herself even deeper into his side. Naruto chuckled to himself and prodded her more firmly.

"Mmhh Naruto-kun, stop bothering me, it's too comfortable like this," whined Hinata-chan.

"I bet it is, but we need to talk for a bit Hinata-chan, it's serious."

Hinata pushed herself up and away from Naruto's chest. She blinked slowly as her hazy eyes became focused again. "What are you talking about Naruto-kun?" Hinata sounded worried.

Naruto got up from his sitting position and dusted his pants for invisible dirt. He offered his hand to Hinata and helped her get up as well. Naruto picked up his bags and started to walk towards the wall separating the village from the wall. After coming close to it, he stopped and turned towards Hinata again. His eyes were filled with sadness as he hated himself for doing this to her. "Hinata-chan, today is my last day in Konoha. I will be leaving this village today."

Hinata's pale eyes widened with each word he said. Her lower lip trembled slightly and she said, "Why Naruto-kun, is it because of the way the villagers look at you or is it because I did something wrong?" Hinata's voice was getting smaller and smaller towards the end of her sentence.

Naruto mentally cursed himself for shaking Hinata-chan's confidence like this. He quickly started talking before she could talk herself into a self induced panic. "It has nothing to do with you Hinata-chan, in fact because of you, I pushed back my plans for leaving already. I was supposed to have left a month ago, but I stayed back only because I wanted to get to know you." Naruto smiled at her and saw that she had a tiny smile on her face too. Naruto reached forward and clasped her tiny soft hands in his. "I want to tell you a secret tonight Hinata-chan, but I need you to promise me that you won't tell anyone about this secret." Hinata nodded her head vigorously at him. Naruto's face split into a smile as he looked at a tiny Hinata bobbing her had quickly, it looked really cute. Naruto snapped himself out of his musing and focused on the task at hand. 'Damn this is not going to be easy,' thought Naruto. "Okay here goes. Hinata-chan have you ever wondered why the villagers look at me with so much hatred and disdain?"

Hinata looked confused for a second and then quickly shook her head saying, "No, Naruto-kun. I always assumed that there was something more to it than your juvenile pranks but never could get any of them to tell me why they hated you. The only thing they would tell me is that I should stay away from you," Hinata's little hand curled into a fist at this point. Naruto smiled at her.

"First off, my pranks were not juvenile, they were absolutely brilliant," Naruto crowed loudly, but cut himself short at the flat look and arched eyebrow he received from Hinata-chan. "Fine fine, they were slightly juvenile, jeez woman cut the man some slack." Hinata giggled at Naruto's playful scowl. Naruto got serious again and said, "They do have a reason to hate me Hinata-chan. They don't specifically hate me per say, but rather they hate what I hold inside me." Naruto paused here for a second and took a deep breath. He knew that the Hinata in the future knew all about him but still welcomed him, but he wasn't sure how she would react right now. But he felt that she had a right to know at least what she was about to get herself into. Naruto released his breath and looked up at Hinata's pale lavender coloured eyes. "Hinata-chan I am currently the host of the nine tailed fox otherwise known as the kyubi no kitsune." Naruto finished and watched Hinata for her reaction. For her part Hinata was frozen. Naruto felt himself starting to panic.

"Naruto-kun if this is one of your pranks then let me tell you it is not a good one. Everyone knows that the kyubi was killed by the Yondaime Hokage." Naruto looked at her and told her about what had happened in the fight. Hinata listened to Naruto's tale with rapt attention. Naruto was telling her the whole story that he had heard from his mother in the future. He told her about how it is that the two of them sacrificed themselves to save him. In doing so he also told her who her father is. By the end of the tale, Hinata was openly crying.

"If you feel that this is too much for you and if you wish to stop seeing me then I-" Naruto was abruptly cut off as he was suddenly engulfed in a hug by a hysterical girl.

"I don't hate you Naruto-kun. You are you and the kyubi's the kyubi they are separate, and I don't care either way. You are always going to be my friend no matter what and if things work out in the future, then perhaps a little more." The old Hinata surfaced for a moment when she started twiddling her thumbs again. Naruto laughed with her and hugged her. He had no doubt in his mind that eventually Hinata would love him as time went on. They stayed like that for a while before Naruto pulled back and told her that it was time for him to go now. Naruto gave her two scrolls. One scroll contained the steps for creating the rasengan. He asked Hinata to learn the technique as he felt that the chakra manipulation methods in there would help her in increasing her strength. Naruto gave her another scroll, to hold. He quickly made a shadow clone and took the scroll from her and gave it to the clone.

"I guess this is goodbye Hinata-chan. Don't worry though, I will definitely come see you in a few years. Grow strong till then and be confident in yourself above all. I know that you will grow up to be a strong and beautiful kunoichi." Naruto leaned in and gave her a final peck on her lips. "After an hour I want you to follow this clone back to the hokage tower and give the old man the scroll that he has. I just want to explain my thoughts to him a little bit. Goodbye Hinata-chan." With a last look at her, Naruto quickly undid his muscle restraint seal and ran up the wall. Crack appeared around his feet in the wall as he jumped towards the edge at the top with a lot of strength and speed. Naruto looked around and noticed that the patrol must not have passed yet as the usual signal from the patrols had not gone off yet. He looked around towards the sentry towers and quickly hopped over the ledge landing on the other side of the wall. He laid a hand against the wall and thought that he could still hear Hinata's crying. Naruto quickly shook his head and took off into the forest. He had a seal to apply on himself and that was not going to be a fun process.

Hinata stood there with the clone for the past hour. Knowing the fact that whatever the clone does would be sent back to Naruto-kun, Hinata snuggled into him for that hour. She would really miss him for the upcoming years. She promised herself though that she would train and become as strong as possible. With the chakra and muscle restraint seals, she would do everything she could to get stronger. After the hour mark had passed, Hinata and the clone made their way to the hokage tower. The saindaime Hokage was just about to leave for the night when they were accosted by the clone and Hinata.

On the other side of the wall, Naruto had quickly used his new chakra control to increase his speed as he accelerated quickly though the trees towards the land of lightning. He headed in that direction in order to mislead the trackers that would come after him. After travelling at a quick pace and making quicker time than 5 ninja's speed combined together, Naruto came upon a clearing that was there. He quickly hopped down the trees and breathed deeply. He smelled no one close by and his sense weren't able to pick up on anyone else either. Naruto quickly took out four scrolls from his bag. He unsealed those scrolls to get two big scrolls out of each of them, so there were eight big scrolls in total. Naruto then went about organizing the scrolls in an octagonal shape. He then took a kunai and cut the pads of his thumbs and his fingers. He quickly drew symbols all over the floor leading from the octagonal edges to the center of the octagon but not quite touching each other. After writing the seals down, Naruto quickly wiped his blood on his shirt and watched as the cuts healed quickly. He took off all his clothes and tossed the clothes outside the seal circle. He sat down in the middle of the octagonal shape and took a deep breath. 'Now to see if the seals provided by Aslan indeed worked or not,' thought Naruto.

Naruto quickly initiated the seal sequence with his hands. There were about two hundred and fifty on seals to go through for the seals to activate. Naruto quickly began going through them while making sure that he didn't make a mistake. He had been practicing this seal sequence in private for the last week or so in Konoha. After the seal sequence was done, Naruto raised his right palm above his head and slapped it on the patch of dirt devoid of blood on it in front of him. The results were instantaneous. The blood seals around him activated and flowed away from him to the scrolls where they started activating the seals in the scroll. Slowly but surely, those seals from the scroll left the scroll land integrated with the blood seals, making them thicker and darker in colour. Naruto quickly prepared himself mentally from the pain and started to hold an image of his new self in his mind. The seals slowly started to inch towards Naruto and upon first impact with his skin, Naruto felt an indescribable amount of pain.

Naruto clenched his teeth to avoid screaming out loud as he focused on the image in his mind. Naruto didn't know how long he sat there for, but after a while the seals had all finished going up his arms and had finally come to reside over his left chest pectoral in an amalgamated mess of dark red. Naruto reached forward and touched a finger to it and hissed and pulled back, it was hot to the touch and still tender. Naruto stood from his sitting position and undid another one of his sealed scrolls. He took out a sleeveless t shirt that surprisingly fit him perfectly. It turned out that his image had not wavered in his mind. Naruto put on his black pants and then put on his dark blue cloak that was missing its leaves now. Naruto quickly got his things in order again and swung his rucksack like bag on his shoulder. He looked towards his previous belongings. He was almost sad that he had to burn his clothes as they were a symbol of him moving forward with his life. Naruto shook his head and quickly performed three hand seals and said "Katon: fireball no jutsu" in a quiet voice. He watched as small fireballs impacted his clothes and slowly ate away at them like hungry beasts. Naruto turned from his burning clothes and started to move toward the land of whirlpools.

In a clearing a little away from where Naruto had finished his transformation, two boys were struggling for their right to survive. The boys were fighting three ninjas with weird animal masks on their faces. One of the boys had red eyes while the other had pale purple eyes. They were both fighting as best as they could to try and avoid their attackers. For as long as they could remember, they had been living a life full of struggle. They were almost never allowed outside by their mother. She always made sure to take care of them, but due to their financial struggles it was difficult. Their mother had to take on odd jobs to keep the food on their table. And sometimes they had to run away from villages for the fear of being caught. Right now their fear was being realized as the three shinobi in front of them were attacking them to kill them. Their mother was already injured by one of the shinobi's when she tried to protect us from them. Shinji and Aoi had no idea why it was that these shinobi were out to kill them, but they thought that this time they really were done for. Shinji saw one of the Shinobi throw a kunai at their mother; he quickly jumped in front of the incoming missile as he had no means of being able to deflect it. At least if he were to die then their mother would be able to lead a peaceful life. With that thought in mind Shinji closed his red eyes waiting for the kunai to come in and hit him. He faintly heard his mother shout no in the background, it seems she was still conscious, perhaps the shinobi would take pity on her and let her live. Shinji hated himself for thinking such thoughts but he had no choice whatsoever. Shinji felt the kunai coming in close to him and prepared for the inevitable with baited breath. He waited and waited but nothing happened.

When Shinji opened his eyes, he saw that someone stood in front of him. Someone that was wearing a dark blue cloak with swirls at the bottom of it. The person was much taller than Shinji; he was roughly six feet tall with broad shoulders but a skinny frame overall. He had dark red hair that extended slightly past his neck. He briefly looked at Aoi and said "I don't know what's going on, but I want you to grab your friend and that injured lady there and move back a little. Let me sort out the situation here." After saying his piece, Aoi quickly nodded and moved towards their mother, Masumi-san. Shinji watched everything happen in a daze. No one had helped them out before and here was someone that came out of nowhere and was standing in front of them protecting them for those shinobi with animal masks. Shinji slowly moved towards the tree beneath which their mother and Aoi were waiting for him. Shinji heard the red haired shinobi talk again, "What does the Anbu black ops of Konoha want with two children and an injured woman?"

"Who's asking?" one of the masked shinobi asked.

"That is of no concern to you, but I will say that if you don't pull back now, I will be forced to attack you as I have no intention of letting these three behind me get hurt anymore. Make your decision now," said the red haired shinobi.

The three masked shinobi looked at each other and as one they all moved together towards the red haired shinobi. Shinji quickly opened his mouth to warn him of the shinobi that had managed to flank him and tried to attack him. But there was no need as the red haired shinobi vanished in a cloud of smoke. The three shinobi stood there confused for a split second before two of them were attacked by two red haired shinobi. The red haired shinobi's clones quickly plunged two kunai into the anbu's necks and watched them fall down. They both turned as one towards the final shinobi who tried to run away now after seeing his partners falling down. Shinji watched as the anbu ran right into a trap and had shuriken embedded in his legs making them immobile. The two red haired shinobi vanished in smoke again as yet another red haired shinobi jumped from the tree tops. He stood in front of the Anbu and ripped of his mask. What he found was a scared looking shinobi. "Tell me who are you three working for and why are you interested in those two?" The shinobi on the ground trembled visibly in front of the red haired shinobi.

"I just started working with these guys recently, I am not even an anbu, I was just a regular chunin at hidden village of Konoha, before Danzo-sama took me in, and as the members of his organization roots were too few to carry out his plans. And we were after those two kids because of their bloodline limits. Please, let me go, I was only following Danzo-sama's orders and nothing else. Heck I am not even a part of root, I hardly know anything about them, and I am just hired muscle to be a lookout for those two while they carried out their deeds." Shinji was confused about what this guy was talking about. Shinji saw the red haired shinobi look up at them with his green eyes. He had no expression on his face whatsoever, he nodded once to himself and said that he will allow the man to go if and only if he would report the whole incident to Hokage-sama in private. The man quickly nodded his head and limped off towards the trees. The red haired man shook his head and quickly set the two bodies on fire. He then made his way towards us.

After setting the bodies on fire, Naruto had promptly walked towards the two boys and helped them out. He had used some quick first aid on the woman to keep her from bleeding out, as she had a shallow cut on her ribs and several cuts on her hands. They weren't critical wounds but they did need to be tended to. Naruto nodded to himself as he formed a couple of kage bunshins and helped the boys carry the woman to the land of whirlpools. There were few words exchanged between them. When they asked him why it was that he was helping them, Naruto just shrugged his shoulders and replied that it was on a whim. Naruto had seen how the red eyed boy, whose name was Shinji, how his eyes had faded from red to black after the battle had finished. It seems that this one had a sharingan, although how that was possible was beyond him. From what he knew all the sharingan weilders had died, except for Sasuke, Itachi, and Madara. Naruto just shook his head of the confusion; perhaps the wounded woman would be able to provide him with some answers.

They were now in a general hospital in whirlpool country waiting for the woman to regain consciousness. Naruto noticed how the two kids were looking worried towards the room every few seconds. Naruto felt his heart go out to them; he noticed the same loneliness around them that he had. Although their feelings stemmed from being on the run and being afraid at all times. Naruto had already decided to help these two kids long before then. After all it's not every day that you stumble across a renegade Uchiha and Hyuga child. The curious thing was that, if Danzo knew about these two, why he wouldn't try to recruit them into his Root organization rather than killing them off. Curious indeed.

"Why don't we go and grab something to eat while your Mom is being treated by the doctors," the two kids looked at each other hesitatingly. Naruto looked at them and their condition of their clothes, they must be struggling financially. "Come on my treat guys." Before either could protest politely Naruto grabbed them both by the neck of their shirts and hauled them from their seats. He ignored the startled sound that they made and lead them out of the hospital and towards the barbeque restaurant in front of him. While Naruto's finances were not that great, they weren't too bad either. He had used the transformation technique on several clones and had them help out at a construction company as civilians. But due to his clone's superior strength and durability, those transformed civilians soon became the favourite of the construction company. Naruto had managed to earn himself quite a bit of money for the last month with this nifty little trick. To think what the owner's face would have been like if he only knew who it was that he was helping out had Naruto cackling in evil laughter on many moments. He helped the little kids inside and started a conversation with them.

Naruto soon found that Aoi was the older one between the two of them. He ordered the meat on behalf of the kids as they seemed too shy to accept food from a stranger. They were still suspicious of Naruto, so Naruto decided to start off by introducing himself. "Ok guys, no need to be shy and reserved with me. My name is Kira Uzumaki. My dreams are for me to be able to live as peaceful a life as possible and resurrect my clan here in the land of whirlpools. I would also like to create an academy of sorts here to help young people become ninjas and if possible then revive the old village as well. I dislike people who give up on things before even trying them out and I dislike people that feel that they have a chip on their shoulder and are out to prove things to people. I also dislike people that continuously try to disrupt everyone's peace while using the excuse of doing it for the greater good." Naruto finished his monologue and noticed that the kids in front of him had gotten serious. The food had arrived meanwhile, so Naruto set about putting the food on the grill and letting it cook. "Alright, your turn Aoi-kun."

Aoi who had been looking at the vast amount of meat in front of him blinked and started to introduce himself. "My name is Aoi Hyuga, I am a part of the Hyuga clan from Konoha, or so my mom tells me as I was separated from my clan when in a kidnapping incident of the main branches heir was foiled. Everyone recovered Hinata-sama but were unable to recover me. I dream of being able to abolish the different houses in the Hyuga clan in Konoha and regardless of what they say, I will remove the cursed seal and alleviate the branch family." Aoi had activated his byakugan by mistake. After realizing his mistake, he quickly turned them off while turning red in the face. Naruto just smiled at him to continue. "My dream is also of becoming the greatest shinobi possible and proving to the main family that it is possible to become strong without being born into the main family. I dislike the people from Konoha that were hunting us as I don't know why it is that they were doing that, I also dislike anyone who would harm my mother. And in the end I like my brother Shinji Takamura and his mother, who is also my mother, Masumi Takamura." As Aoi had finished talking the food was done cooking.

Naruto quickly took some meat in his dish and ate some, and said that it was absolutely delicious. He noted that the kids were still hesitant to eat. He smiled again and dropped food onto their plate and told them to start eating. By the time Naruto was done putting the meat on their plates, they had a mountain of meat in front of them. "Alright Shinji-kun your turn!"

Naruto grinned at Shinji as he wolfed down his part of the meat dish quickly. Naruto swore to himself that he was looking at the kid because he somewhat reminded Naruto of himself when he was a kid. Guess not every kid that was put through harsh environment turned out like Gaara, some of them did turn out like him it turns out. Naruto smiled at him and encouraged him to go on and tell them about himself. "My dream is also to become a great shinobi so that I can protect those around me. My dream is also to find my father and ask him some questions." Naruto at this point felt slightly nervous as he thought that Shinji did not know about the Uchiha massacre in Konoha. "I also like my brother and my mother the most in the world. I also like Kira-san as he helped us fight off those evil shinobi that hurt my mother. I dislike those who tried to hunt us and I dislike rude people." Naruto smiled at Shinji at the end of his monologue and gave them both more food to eat.

They just hung out in the restaurant for a couple of hours as it seemed that after the introduction the kids had opened up to him. Naruto smiled at them. There was barely any difference between the three of them age wise, as Naruto's biological age was still a little over 7 years old. While Aoi was 7 years old himself, Shinji was about 6 years old. The age would put him being born a little after a year of the Uchiha massacre. Naruto was lost in thought as they left the restaurant to check in on Masumi-san.

In the hospital room they found that the lady, Masumi-san, was wrapped up in several bandages. She was well rested though and when she saw them come in, she tried to sit up. Naruto quickly moved to lay a hand on her shoulder and push her back into the bed gently. Masumi-san looked into his now green eyes with unshed tears and voiced her gratitude to him. "Thank you very much Kira-sama, we are forever in your debt. We would do anything we can to repay it but unfortunately we can't." Naruto just smiled at her and told her that it was alright. Naruto asked for the kids to go outside and go to sleep on the couches; he told them that he would come out to get them after he was done talking to his mother. After they had left, Naruto asked Masumi-san about Shinji's father. "You know the meaning of his red eyes don't you?" Naruto nodded at Masumi-san in a positive manner. "I used to live in the outskirts of the Uchiha compound seven years ago. I was seeing my boyfriend at the time who was eighteen years old at that time. We were happy together, but my boyfriend's father wouldn't allow a relationship like ours to exist as he was an elite Uchiha and I was but a civilian, and that too a civilian that was not an Uchiha. When the Uchiha massacre occurred, only a few people knew of me being pregnant, and one of them was Danzo from the ninja council." Masumi spit the name out as if it was toxic. "He knew that the child in my stomach at the time was an Uchiha, and that the chances of the child manifesting the sharingan were high seeing as who the father was. So with the help of my mother, I escaped the village and gave birth to my son in the land of waves, but Danzo had been keeping an eye on me. Escaping a second time from the land of waves had cost me my mother as she had to sacrifice herself so that we could escape. It was during our escape that we came across a young Aoi-kun at the time. I took him in as well as leaving a child on the side of a street seemed very inhumane to do and I recognized him as a Hyuga so I knew that he would be in danger if someone with bad intent were to notice him. Since then we have been living our lives on the run, trying to run away from Danzo's shinobi, but they always found us and I fear that if you hadn't come by when you did then it might have been too late."

Naruto heard the whole story and asked her the two questions that were bugging him. "Masumi-san, why would Danzo try to kill your son when he could have brought him back to leaf and had him train in the way of a ninja. I mean he would have been able to provide the leaf with another Uchiha, and that would have strengthened his stand in the council. So why would he deliberately try to kill your son and if you don't mind me asking, who is Shinji-kun's father?"

Masumi looked towards the ceiling and uttered the name quietly, in fact it was so quiet that if Naruto hadn't been listening for it then he wouldn't have caught on to it. "Uchiha Itachi."

Naruto was floored. He was absolutely astounded. He could have seen anything coming but that. I mean wasn't Itachi supposed to be a , with a higher agenda in the world. Naruto shook his head of his thoughts as he asked the one question that was bugging him quite a bit. "How?" Ever the eloquent Naruto.

Masumi smiled as she thought about the past times. "Itachi-kun was not always as cold as you saw him. I still remember him from when we were kids, he would love to smile and play around with the rest of us as much as possible. I still remember the expression on his face when we were 17 and he told me that he had a kid brother coming into the family. He told me how they named the child Sasuke, and he told me that he would love to have a child just as cute be his own. With me. It was the happiest day in my life when he proposed to me on that day. Coincidentally it was on that day that young Shinji was conceived." Masumi was still smiling while Naruto was doing his hardest not to shudder in revulsion by thinking of Sasuke's brother like that. "But then things started to change. Itachi-kun started to act strangely. He was always cold towards the rest of his clan and the villagers but he started doing so a little to me too. And then came the night of the Uchiha massacre. The night where he killed everyone from the Uchiha family. I found him after that incident, in our hiding spot by the edge of the village. He was sitting there stoically and one look at me and he crumbled. I still remember how such a strong man could be brought down to his knees. I can't forget the pain and anguish that lingered in his eyes at that time. He asked me to be able to meet our son one last time. Shinji was asleep at the time when Itachi took one last look at him. He always came to meet Shinji when he was sleeping, saying that it can't get out that he is his child or else his father would do everything possible to kill this child. I remember asking him if that was why he decided to kill the whole family and he and shaken his head saying no. But I remember him saying that if the Uchiha clan had tried to hurt his child then he would have attacked them without feeling any remorse whatsoever, no one would attack his child and get away with it." Masumi was crying at this point again as she remembered the past days again. Naruto held her hand in support as she continued her tale. "He told me after that it wasn't him who had killed the Uchiha clan but rather Uchiha Madara had. Uchiha Madara had used some type of genjutsu on him that forced him to do his bidding. Even Itachi-kun was not strong at that point. But after watching his kin being cut down by his own sword but not being able to stop himself, grief consumed him. And it was this grief that allowed for him to unlock the Mangekyou Sharingan. He came back to his senses in the end when he had finished using the tsukiyomi on Sasuke and he was about to kill him, but his love for his brother allowed him to break the technique. After leaving his brother like that he had run away from there to our meeting spot hoping beyond hope that I would go see him one last time before he became a missing nin. And I did." Masumi finished her tale and closed her eyes.

Naruto was shocked beyond words. Even from his future memories, he hadn't known any of these things. Does that mean that in the future that he had left behind, Aoi-kun and Shinji-kun had died. Naruto shook his head of the complicated stuff and decided to comfort Masumi-san in front of him. "Masumi-san I am sorry for your loss. You have gone through hardships that you shouldn't have had to. If you want, you and the kids can come with me. I am going to the old Uzumaki clan house and I am going to live there. If the two of you want then you can come over there and live me."

Masumi looked unsure but after a little prodding from Naruto she agreed that she would come with him to stay at his clan house. Naruto left the hospital room to go outside. He had a lot of thinking to do now it seems. Naruto looked across from the door to find that the kids had gone to sleep. Naruto formed two shadow clones and had them carry them across the hospital to the hotel in which he had rented a room with his shadow clone before. He went in and laid the kids on the beds. He sat down in a corner of the room and went to sleep. All the excitement of fighting three anbu, seal transformation and the emotional tension caught up to him and he promptly fell into a deep sleep.

After a while Naruto was being prodded awake by someone tapping at his forehead and another finger tapping him at the side of his stomach. Stifling some laughter that was trying to escape his mouth due to the prodding, Naruto opened his eyes blearily and swatted the hands away. He looked up from his corner to see that the kids were up and staring at him with big smiles on their faces. It seems they had gotten over yesterday's trauma to an extent. Naruto quickly yawned and told the kids that it was time to go check on their mother in the hospital.

While on the way to the hospital, Naruto told the kids that they were going to be coming with him to his house and their mother would be coming with him. The kids considerably brightened up at that. "Say Kira-san, is it possible that you could teach us some of those kick ass ninja moves that you used when defeating those Anbu ninjas," asked Shinji in his loud voice. 'Sheesh this kid is an exact replica of me,' thought Naruto.

"Hmm who knows, it depends on how hard the two of you are willing to work," said Naruto while smiling in a secretive manner at them. The boys quickly said that they would work as hard as possible and that they won't disappoint him. "Well then if you boys say that you are going to work as hard as you say, then I can't disappoint you can I." Naruto grinned as the kids got excited and ran ahead of him to tell their mother of the good news.

Naruto separated from the kids to pay the bill at the hospital and walked into the room to find the kids talking a mile a minute while barely stopping to breathe. It was quite funny to watch between Aoi and Shinji telling their mom about the treat he had given them at the restaurant to them telling her about how he was going to teach them of how to become a ninja. "..And then Kira-sensei said that he would teach us to become awesome ninja just like him!" finished Shinji. Naruto felt an odd feeling at hearing himself being referred to as sensei. Naruto decided that it was definitely a good feeling.

"I can't thank you enough for how much you have done, Kira-sama, thank you very much," Masumi bowed parallel to the floor to express her gratitude. Naruto quickly asked her to not do that again as it embarrassed him. He also asked her to not refer to him with the sama suffix as it made him feel older. Masumi just smiled at him. The merry band of trio and Naruto left the hospital to make their towards the Uzumaki estate.

**And that is the end of the second chapter. The third chapter is already underway; we are going to have a slight time skip though. We are going to skip ahead two years now. Just a reminder now, the age difference between Sasuke and Itachi in this story is bigger than what it is in the manga. Just letting you all know in case there is some confusion about it. Anyways please leave a review for me if you can and we have hit a half century with the alerts for the chapter and are close to doing it for favourites too lol. Thank you for your reviews again, bad or good, it is always great to see how people view my story. **

**On another note, I am looking for a Beta if anyone is interested please pm me and we can figure out a way to exchange documents from the site and back and forth.**

**Lastly if you have any requests as to how to see the story develop, just leave a review or pm me and I will try to incorporate it into my story, although just letting you know, it might not work out as I do have a rough blueprint for where I want the story to go. Anyways hope you enjoyed the second chapter, the third chapter is where things really kick off in full motion!**

**Ginzo**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters. This story is not being used for making any profits whatsoever, its sole purpose is for pleasure reading only. The only thing I own is the plot.**

Special thanks to the people that took the time to leave a comment for the second chapter: Hakel Fury, Guest, chaotic stalker, Kenneth rose and 10th squad 3rd seat. I especially enjoyed reading the review from jabbarulez lol.

Thank you to everyone else for adding the story to your favourite and alert list. I was shocked how popular it is as in just two chapters the story has over 2500 hits and almost 75 people on the favourite list and a 100 on the alert list. You guys just know how to make a guy's day lol.

Thanks once again for giving such a heartfelt welcome to me and my work, it isn't often that my stories are liked so quickly in the beginning as I like to take my time to work my way into them, but thank you once again.

If possible, leave a review in the review section, bad or good feedback would serve as a huge moral boost for me. Reading the reviews makes me realize that there is someone out there that is reading my story and it is a fantastic feeling, so if possible please take two minutes to let me know what you felt about the chapter that I wrote. Thanks once again.

**Chapter 3 – All good things must end, or should they?**

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

The sound permeated the atmosphere with an eerie feeling as Naruto sat down on the floor and tried to focus himself. The atmosphere in the sewer was very stiff. Evil can be smelt, felt and seen as thin red wisps of the Kyubi's chakra left the jail cell and moved outwards. Naruto sat there in his meditative state as he came to terms with what it was that he was about to do. The Kyubi was sleeping at the moment and hadn't noticed him yet, but Naruto was sure that in a few seconds the Kyubi would notice him. Naruto breathed evenly as he slowly opened his eyes and got up. The slight shift in the atmosphere caused the Kyubi to wake up.

The fox was used to seeing his host from time to time as the blonde jinchuriki had taken it upon himself to at least take some time out to talk with the fox every day. His actions had the Kyubi baffled to no extent. The Kyubi had been watching his host for the past few months and he had noticed a vast change in him. The first one of them being that the traces of evil that existed in him due to the villagers' heckling was no longer in turmoil. The evil still existed in him (after all no being in the world is left without an evil thought ever), but his host had somehow managed to rest his turmoil and driven the evil portion down till it was non-existent. The most surprising thing though, was that this occurred overnight. The Kyubi felt that there was something severely wrong about that.

The other thing that had changed about the boy had been his eyes. When Kyubi looked at those eyes, he realized that those eyes did not belong to a boy, but rather a man. To someone who has seen far too much in far too little time. Despite his hatred towards the boy and his father, Kyubi found himself liking the spirit that he was displaying. Kyubi watched as Naruto finally opened his eyes from his meditative state and stood up from his place where he was sitting.

"What are you doing boy?"

Naruto just smiled at the Kyubi and said, "Something that needs to be done. I am going to try to remove your seal now."

Kyubi was shocked beyond reason. With the thought of freedom going through his mind, he got overly excited and leaped up behind his cage. His tails started to wave around in anticipation for being free. He didn't know what brought this change in the boy, but whatever happens, he would be free in the end it seems. "It seems like you have finally realized how powerful a bijuu I am boy, yes you made the smart decision of freeing me and releasing me out in the world. Rest assured, I won't do anything to you or your friends." The Kyubi grinned in a malevolent manner as he lied to the boy.

Naruto chuckled and said, "Stupid fox, I have no intention of freeing you, just releasing the seal so I can use your chakra better." Naruto then proceeded to rip the seal off of the barrier. There was a flash of white and Naruto was standing there with the Yondaime hokage.

"Naruto What are you doing?" asked the fourth with a slight frown on his forehead.

"I knew you were going to show up when I tried to remove the seal dad. If you can, could you please move us to somewhere else and call mom as well so we can have a little heart to heart and then get on with today's work." Naruto grinned like an idiot while looking at his dad. His dad on the other hand had a flummoxed look on his face. He slowly eyed Naruto with an arched eyebrow and then grasped his hand. Kyubi watched as the two disappeared from his view. He roared in defiance as his chance to escape had been foiled once again by the bane of his existence, the Yondaime Hokage.

Naruto was now standing in a clearing facing the Kyubi that was crushed underneath all that weight of the seal. Naruto had successfully separated all the Kyubi's chakra from his will. This allowed Naruto to be able to access all his powers, allowing him to form his ninetails yellow chakra coat, only now he had time to actually train with it rather than jumping into battle directly with it. After the fight with the Kyubi, Naruto and his parents were left standing in the clearing without the Kyubi, but still in Naruto's mindscape. Naruto had explained to his mom and dad about the ordeal that he had been through. Upon hearing Aslan's name, his mom had gasped while covering her mouth with her hand. She had promptly hugged him after as she knew that it was damn near impossible to power that seal and the fact that her child had been able to do it was beyond belief for her. Then Uzumaki Kushina, now Namikaze Kushina had cried tears upon hearing the fact that her child had been put through an insurmountable pain and unfathomable load. Naruto held his mother as he patted her back. He was taller than what he used to be at almost 8 years of age in the past, but he was still a runt compared to his adult body, so he was taller than his mother by only an inch or so.

"I am really sorry for what you were put through son, but you have to understand my part in the fight against the Kyubi. I couldn't have possibly sealed the child into someone else's baby. For what its worth, I never wanted the villagers to see you as a menace to them. I wanted them to see you for the hero that you are by simply standing guard at Kyubi's gate and not allowing it to roam free. I am so sorry son, if you could, please find a small corner in you where you can forgive your old man." Kushina had tears in her eyes after hearing all the things that Minato had to say.

"It's alright father. I have long since come to terms with what you had to do. But man we are one messed up family aren't me, talk about meeting up in such a bizarre manner," Naruto chuckled wryly as his mother once again put a hand around his shoulders. "I know that the time is limited right now so let me tell you everything I have ever wanted to tell you." Naruto paused for a big breath and started talking, at a faster pace. "I know with what intentions you had to seal the Kyubi in me father, and while I don't love you for it, I do understand your decision. I also know what happened with Uchiha Madara attacking mom and you, the only decision that I was disappointed in was the one where you could have stayed alive but instead you chose to seal your chakra in me in order to allow mom this chance so that she could talk with me. While I am sad that you chose to leave the world of the living willingly, I am also glad that you didn't let the shinigami take mother completely but rather traded in parts of yourself and her so that you can leave your chakra signatures in me so you could meet me someday. Thank you for being the best father you could be under the situation. I don't like what you did, but I understand it, and because of that understanding I also understand that I love you Dad." Minato freely let his tears flow down his eyes as he made forward and grabbed his little family in a hug.

After chatting with them for a few more minutes, the last vestiges of his parent's chakra faded and Naruto silently let the tears flow down his eyes as he cheerfully waved at his parents as they faded out of his view. Naruto looked around the white expanse in which he was standing in. He quickly cleared his eyes and made his way towards the snarling fox that was completely immobile at this time. The Kyubi no longer had any power in it, it was now just another living conscious in his body. If the Kyubi ever were to try and escape from Naruto's body, the only thing it would succeed in doing would be to from itself as an opaque manifestation for a few seconds before disintegrating and dying. If Akatsuki were to capture him now, it would be totally useless as the Kyubi's evil chakra was now being converted into his regular chakra at a very quick pace. It would be a week at the earliest when all of Kyubi's chakra would end up assimilating in Naruto's body and it would be as long because his father's spirit had managed to acquire the other half of the Kyubi's chakra from his body. The Kyubi was whole in him now and yet it was separated from its power indefinitely. The Kyubi was currently snarling at him as he came to stand in front of it. Naruto made a Ram seal and released the Kyubi from its confines and watched as he stood up and stretched his limbs while growling at him.

"You will pay for this you impudent whelp! Kami I swear you are going to pay for this! You had no right, absolutely no right to do this!" roared the Kyubi.

Naruto sagely nodded his head and did something that surprised the Kyubi completely. He bowed down to the Kyubi and put his head down to the floor and apologised to him. Naruto then went on to explain to him what had happened in the future and suffice to say that it was a very painful conversation for Naruto. The Kyubi scoffed at the idea of them being friends and when he asked him to prove it, Naruto did. He called the fox Kurama which promptly shocked the snarling fox into silence. The conversation from that point onwards was at the least quite weird.

Naruto stepped out of his mindscape as he left his friend Kurama to deal with everything that had happened. On one hand Naruto was glad for what he did as it cleansed his friend from the evil taint that was the remains of the genjutsu that was cast on him by Uchiha Madara. But on the other hand, he also lamented the fact that he had stripped his friend of his life force. Naruto had to make a decision between the two as he had tried to circumvent the situation by trying to find answers in the ever so big Uzumaki library. Alas, the research had bore no fruits to all of Naruto's labours and he found that regardless of what he tried, there was simply no way of releasing the Kyubi from himself without killing himself. Naruto while saddened by the news, did not have the time to spend reminiscing about it. He had a nation to build and that was going to take everything he had and then some more.

Naruto and his little troupe containing of Aoi, shinji and their mother had come to the Uzumaki estate about a year ago. Since then Naruto had managed to tap into his family clan's accounts and found that the clan was partially responsible for handling most of the country's financial affairs. This lead to him being able to provide for him and his troupe quite well. After coming here the first thing Naruto had done was to begin conditioning his body as well as he could, as according to Aslan's seal, he would retain his looks for the next year but after the year he would revert back to his original looks. However, one key aspect that did not change was the fact that his body would remain the same, the only thing that would change would be the things that were responsible for obscuring anyone from identifying him. So here Naruto found himself a year later with his hair gone back to being blonde and his eyes back to its previous cerulean blue colour.

Naruto breathed out as he walked out of one of the meditation rooms in the estate. He walked out of the room and towards the clothes rack. He put on a white coloured tshirt and henged himself to look as he did before the incident with the Kyubi. Wresting control from the Kyubi had rendered the last vestiges of red from his hair to fall away completely. Naruto sighed to himself as he would have to explain these things to his two protégés. The two had made quite a name for themselves in the village at the moment. Everyone knew them as the prankster duo that did everything possible to keep the village residents on their toes as there never was a day where someone can walk through the streets without getting hit in the face with different coloured paints ranging from blue to red and all the rainbow colours in between. Naruto remembered passing on every single one his prankster ways to the two wayward kids, it soothed his old soul to see such exuberant kids.

While Naruto was pleased with Aoi and Shinji's prankster behaviour, someone definitely wasn't. Masumi-san had taken every chance she could get to show her displeasure at Naruto and his antics, but Naruto just shoved them aside as easily as he could. He knew that for all her disapproving facade she was secretly glad that her kids had found an older brother in Naruto. In a way she had started to treat Naruto as her family too, she just couldn't remember when it had started. Naruto shook himself out of his thoughts as he went out towards the main foyer toward the building situated directly to the right of the estate.

The first thing Naruto had done in regards to building his village was to look through the building that were currently owned by the Uzumaki clan. While the clan had still existed throughout the village after the purging of their village, they were broken and were unable to access its properties due to the lack of a clan head. That problem had been resolved when Naruto had arrived. Naruto had reopened the compound for all the Uzumaki clan members that now existed dispersed throughout the village.

At first only a couple had come forth to meet with him. They did so in an afraid manner not knowing the manner in which they would be welcomed. Naruto had made sure to go above and beyond to welcome the members in as grand a way as he could and before he realized it, the trickle had changed into a downpour of ninja from the village of old coming to seek him. It seems that many fathers had passed on their ninja skills onto their children and those children on to their children. These ninjas were used to working as mercenaries for the local merchant or two for making money off of their family's tradition. An occasional mission could be found by hearsay from one person to another and in this manner many of them managed to stay aloft. Of course due to the lack of a structure they were cheated out of their money more often than not, but there was no village there to support them and they had to cut their losses and move on with life. When they heard about the Naruto, they remembered the old Uzumaki's of the old that they heard from their father and approached Naruto with such hope that he couldn't turn them away even if he wanted to. Not that he wanted to.

Naruto had welcomed them all with open arms and had opened up the various apartment complexes that belonged to the Uzumaki clan. He had gotten them all settled and had set up a program for them to get up to speed with their ninja training. Nauto had personally overseen their training and to say the least he was more than impressed. Naruto had about 300 nijas at hand currently, all of whom were at least chunin or above with about a third of them being at a jounin rank. The next few months had many a ninja going to sleep while suffering from a nightmare of a cackling redhead with green eyes rubbing his hands together while he devised a new method for torture. Training, sorry. Naruto had spent the couple of months with the jounins to help devise better methods for the chunins and left the chunins to the training schedule set forth by the jounins. While this was happening, Naruto had set up a school for the gifted, which while disregarding its name, was really a school for training kids in the ninja arts. He had soon grafted some of the jounin into teaching as well.

Naruto was shocked by the wide array that these jounin's brought with them. The children were being taught different styles of taijutsu while being taught different ninjutsu ranging from fire style to water style. To say the least Naruto was more than please with the way things were proceeding. With that said he still managed to take out time to teach his own two apprentice, who according to their classmates were the luckiest kids there since they managed to get Kira-sama as their sensei, but the two kids were to quick to shoot down those sentiments while elaborating about the demon that their sensei was when it come to training. Naruto chuckled to himself as he thought about how close they were to the mark and yet how far they were.

With the increase in the number of people that he had to support, Naruto's family's personal finances soon started to take a hit. While it was true that he was well off, he wasn't well enough to support about 300 ninjas plus about 200 academy students. At the end of his two months Naruto realized that he would have to approach the Waterfall Daimyo and ask him for his help in his endeavour. However it was still time to put the chunin's and the jounin's back in the field except the ones that were in charge of the field. Naruto being Naruto, had no clue as to how he was supposed to get that in order, but when he put the question forth to his council of ninja that he had selected from the jounin's they quickly came up with the solution and set up a mission hall of sorts within the Uzumaki compound. Now it was an everyday occurrence for the people to line up and submit their mission requirements and the ninjas would fulfill the missions for the designated fee. When asked about the grading system of the missions Naruto had pondered on it before replying that the system that they other villages used were fine, but at the moment he asked them to avoid accepting any missions above B-rank. Naruto barely had a ninja force, and while they were trained well, there was no reason to squander their ranks needlessly. They won't be going out in the field until he was able to provide them with forehead protectors with their village's symbol on it. While it might just feel like a metal and fabric to most, Naruto understood the meaning of a forehead protector more than anymore. The amount of effort he put in to get it and the ease with which Sasuke had tossed it away had Naruto realize the importance of the forehead protector. The symbol etched onto it was your lifeline out there in the world. It was your identity and without it, you are naked against whatever the others wish to do to you.

An identity is what Naruto had tried to forge in Konoha all his life. An identity that was whole without the Kyubi's slight on it. He had tried to outrun the shadow of his own demon for as long as he could remember. And eventually Naruto had succeeded in forging his own identity. He had done so after the fight with Konoha. In the past Naruto struggled to build his own identity, he shed sweat, blood, and tears for it. Now he would willingly sacrifice that and much more to provide for the people here. His people. That day was clearly etched into Naruto's mind as it was the day on which he had grown up mentally. It wasn't the destruction of the world that managed to force him in to growing up but rather the fact that he was responsible for these people. His immediate responsibility was the people within his village, but the people in the other villages were his responsibility as well. Naruto felt this way due to Madara's plan, nobody deserved to have their lives subjected to a madman's will and whim.

It were these thoughts that had driven Naruto to put his combat training on hold and study the intricate manners of running a country and diplomacy. He had learned the history of his village and the manner in which they operated. With the help of his Ninja council he had quickly managed to set up a civilian council that helped the village be governed properly. Unknowingly doing so led to the civilian and ninja council to fall under his power. While he did not hold an official position, they still reported to him. Naruto fancied himself as the new Kage of the village, but even he knew that the term Kage only belonged to the five big ninja nations out there. With that thought in mind, Naruto had delved into the history and made some contacts towards their friends and kin.

Naruto was brought out of his musings as he came across the academy kids trying to do chakra exercises. Some spotted him and quickly waved at him before going back walking on the water and trying to avoid falling in. Due to lack of trees, the children weren't able to use leaves to help them learn the intermediate steps to chakra control. Instead they had to settle with the jounins creating sturdy mud walls with their Earth jutsu and scaling them with chakra. While it was slightly taxing on the jounin, they all took it in a stride to help the next generation. Naruto saw Shinji and Aoi helping their classmates out as they went from person to person helping them out. Naruto saw a girl struggling with it and walked up to her. "You are trying to hard Nina-chan, just let it come to you and you will be fine. Just relax yourself." Naruto smiled at the little girl who barely came to his stomach. She looked at him and let out a silent eep before going red all over. So busy was she in staring at him and flapping her mouth open and close that she failed to realize that she had managed to stay afloat now with the use of chakra while maintaining perfect balance. "See when you relax you can do it Nina-chan, good job," Naruto pet her head and promptly caused her to come out of her shock and drop directly into the water with a loud splash as her concentration was broken. She climbed back to the bank and watched Naruto walk away while smiling.

Naruto chuckled to himself as he made his way towards Shikai-san the jonin in charge of today's training. He had several special jonin available with him, going around helping the kids. While this job is usually left to the chunin, Naruto was pressing the chunin to study hard and quickly rise in ranks as they had a huge disadvantage when it came to numbers, hence they should make up for it through the quality in their ninja. Naruto thought that he might have to do something to motivate them, but their need to please him had served as a bigger motivator then anything else. When he had brought this up to Shikai-san, their resident tactics and intelligence officer, he had told Naruto that Nartuo had provided them with something that none of them had dared to dream for. He had provided them with the hope that they would finally belong to their homeland in a proper manner and in a way that they were supposed to. And as each day went by, their endeavour of resurrection from the ashes was turning into a reality. This in turn caused them to push themselves even more. It still didn't make sense to Naruto, but he wasn't complaining in the slightest.

"Good morning Shiaki-san, is she here yet?" asked Naruto.

"Good morning Kira-sama, yes she is here and she is now waiting to meet with you in your office upstairs." Shiaki bowed to Naruto slightly while addressing him. Naruto nodded to him and started up towards his office. He walked up the stairs and rounded them to enter his office that was situated at the top of his school for the gifted. Naruto walked in and dropped his transformation jutsu as he locked the door behind him. Naruto looked across the room towards the lady standing by the window that was looking out towards the academy. The woman had curly red hair that covered part of her face and obscuring one of her eyes from view. She was wearing a blue dress that had a slit on the right side and revealed a foot clad in fishnets and a purple coloured boot.

"Well you certainly seem to have a whole array of kids out there Naruto-san. The number just increased quite a bit from what I last remember. The last time around there were barely twenty kids in the school with a couple of chunins as their sensei, but now there are jounin's as sensei and nearly 100 kids in the academy, how have you managed this?"

"I told you Terumi-san. When I announce the fact that we are accepting ninja back into this village, many will come back seeing as how they were forced to disband rather than doing it on their own. They wished to continue on with the village after the fall of my clan at the treachery of the Tsuchikage and his ninja, but it was either their families' lives or their country and some chose their family while others the country. In both cases my brethren came out with heavy losses. And when they heard of my name and the fact that I live, well they just couldn't resist coming now could they. It is going exactly as I said it would, and the other things will go exactly as I said they would as well, if only you could trust me and take my word for it." Naruto smiled at the future Godaime Mizukage of village hidden in the mist.

Mei Terumi turned around and stared at Naruto from behind her bangs. She had grown fond of this man for the last 8 months as he had approached her in the village hidden in the mist and had helped her out by providing intel to her regarding the Yondaime Mizukage and his capabilities. She had found out that he held a bijuu in him, the three tails to be precise and that he was controlled by another entity altogether. While she wanted to fault Yagura for all the bloodshed that was committed in the past in her motherland, she couldn't do so in good conscience due to the information she was provided from the boy in front of her. "I would love to take your word for it Uzumaki Naruto-san, but as the leader of the resistance faction I simply can't do so. I know you have our best interest in hearts but even then I must make my decisions so that it would be beneficial to my village and mine alone. I still like you as a professional, but I can't accept your offer."

Naruto nodded at the future Mizukage of the Mist village and asked her to take a seat across from him. He sat down and noticed a boy in the background that had a two handed sword on his back. Naruto smiled at him and turned his attention back towards Terumi-san. "I know that you must look out for your village first above all else, trust me I am coming to understand exactly what it entails to shoulder the responsibility of a village. And I realized that with what I have to do, I cannot exactly take on this responsibility, but I need someone just as credible to do so for me. I am changing my previous offer Terumi-san. Instead of allowing parts of those clans to come back, clans that had fled from the village hidden in the whirlpool during the purging of this village, I would like you to have them all sent back now rather than just parts of each clan. In return I will hand over all control of the village into your capable hands, the only thing I would ask for is that when I make additions to the village I would like you to accept them rather than brushing them aside due to their shady past. I ask you to trust me to see this through and resurrect this village to its former glory, unfortunately though this would lead to the inevitable fall of the Mist village from its former glory and it no longer being recognized as one of the great five villages. But the question you have to ask yourself is, if it is the land or the area that make up a country or the people that live in it. If you insist on holding onto the Mist village and continuing the civil war, then a lot of blood will be spilled. We both know what a disaster that would be and in the end it would end up leaving only a weakened village. Bring those clans under your rule here, here where they would be appreciated for who they are, here where they would be accepted with open arms, here where they would be allowed to be themselves without fear for their children, here where their children can grow up without the stigma of war. Please, I know this is a lot to ask for, but all I ask of you is that you reconsider Mei-chan." Naruto ended talking to look up Mei-cha, as he liked to call her in private due to them being on good terms recently.

Mei Terumi looked at the enigma of a man that was sitting in front of her. He had the capability to lead them in a fantastic manner and yet here he was giving up that role to her because he felt that in this manner he would be able to save as many people as possible. 'The problem was that the fourth Mizukage won't simply let the clans leave the fold of their village as easily,' thought Mei. Mei was startled from her thoughts when she realized that at the moment she was considering the fourth Mizukage's reaction, which meant that moving all those clans to the village was a foregone conclusion already. She chuckled to herself as she looked up to look up at the blonde frowning slightly while looking at her with an abnormal intensity in his eyes. It was the boy, no the man, sitting in front of her that finally tipped the scales in her decision. "I agree to your proposal Naruto-kun, but I have to ask you what you meant by allowing people into the village without any questions." Mei crossed her fingers in front of her face and rested her chin on her hands as she waited for Naruto to answer those questions.

"Thank you for accepting Mei-chan I knew I could count on you," Naruto grinned at her before slightly losing that grin. "I meant exactly that when I put forth that request Mei-chan. I have an artefact in my possession from my ancestors. This artefact will be the final test to become a chunin rank and above in this village. What this artefact would do is show the people entering various things and if they are strong and loyal enough to the village then they would come out marked. This mark would never fade till their loyalty remains to the village, but the day that loyalty shifts, the mark would disappear faster then you would believe." Naruto lifted his left forearm and removed the illusion around it to show her the symbol on it. Naruto extended his hand forward and saw the swordsman and Mei lean forward to inspect the golden tattoo on Naruto's forearm. There on Naruto's arm was a golden Chinese dragon that sashayed its way up to the top of his wrist where it swerved to the left and came to rest its mouth on the back of his hands.

"It is quite an exquisite token. Is the process painful and what are the chances of ninja dying Naruto-kun?" asked Mei.

"The process is not painful physically as it is mentally. This arch that I have in my possession is a remnant of a long forgotten city named Rhuidean. I don't know much about its history. But this arch shows you things about your past and makes you come to terms with it. It makes you whole and removes any psychological instability that you might have. The chances of a ninja dying are slim to none. My recent ancestors had tweaked the arch in a manner with their seals that the arch would just kick someone out without the tattoo and their memory modified to forget everything if they had failed. In this manner the chances of anyone dying is absolutely zero."

Naruto failed to mention about the fact that being an Uzumaki he was allowed to see into the past far more than anyone else could. Naruto abstained from that portion of the conversation as it would be hard to explain about his ancestors being fierce warriors that fought without the use of chakra. Or the weird one power that existed in the world at that time. Naruto shook his head of such thoughts as he went back to the conversation at hand. Mei was asking him if it was possible to see this arch in person. Naruto nodded his head as they moved towards the Uzumaki estate and quickly sat down in the designated spot to activate the seal to activate the arch. In the past a tree's life force was used to power the arch, but due to the slow steady stream of energy, the arch would keep the person trapped in there from anywhere from 7 to 12 days, at the end of which the person would die due to the arch not having enough energy to kick them out, hence letting them just die. But with the seals placed by his recent ancestors they had managed to circumvent all these problems and go on to produce a flawless piece of work. Naruto started to provide chakra to get the arch going and asked Mei to strip herself of all weapons that she might have on herself. When she asked her why he simply answered, "Because it's tradition."

Mei looked awkwardly at him and did as he asked and stepped through the arch. They didn't have to wait long as Mei was back out of the arch in less than 20 minutes. Although she was looking worse for wear. "What the heck was that in there?" asked Mei while panting for breath. Naruto stood from his position and guided her to a chair and gave her a glass of water to calm her nerves.

"What you just saw right now was the truth. However you are not allowed to speak of what you see in the arch with anyone else Mei-chan. The only people you may discuss it with is with people who have stepped through it and even then you must do so with caution as not everyone sees the same thing. So would you be willing to take me up on my offer and officially join the Whilpool village Mei-chan?" Naruto smiled at her in his mischievous manner.

Mei's lips curled to the side as she looked at him and said, "I don't know Naruto-kun, not after what I saw in there. I need to make my decisions more carefully you know."

Naruto just chuckled and rolled up the sleeve on her hand slightly to point at the dragon's head resting on the back of her hand. "I am pretty sure you will like your stay here Mei-chan. Come on let's get this show on the road shall we. We will have your friend Ao-kun here go through the arch as well and after we are done we will start the process of having the jounins and chunins go through it as well. After which I have an appointment to keep with another certain someone. After that if things proceed as I expect them to, then I shall head to the village hidden in the mist, where you can rendezvous with me with a few jounins from here and we can move those clans back here. I have already seen to building different compounds with what sparse financial resources we had left."

Mei nodded her head and watched as Ao went through the arch and came back out looking really dazed. He looked at her and she nodded subtly stating that they would discuss this in private later. "Well then it seems everything's in order, why don't you two meet with me tonight at the party and we can well go from there." Naruto smiled at the two as they left the estate and created a shadow clone that would escort them to their rooms in the city. Naruto went back inside to his room and got his gear together. He went back outside to find Shiaki-san waiting for him with a group of ninja again. Naruto had taken care to henge back into the red haired youth that everyone knew here as Uzumaki Kira. Naruto nodded for them and asked them to latch onto his arm. Once they did, he used his father's famous Hirashin no jutsu to teleport them out of there and towards a rocky shore.

Naruto beamed up at the cloudy sky as he willed his eyes to adjust themselves. He waited a few more minutes patiently with his jounin companions before someone dropped out of a tree from behind them. "Kira-sama I have the report that you requested. That scum Gatou's whereabouts are located approximately 3 kilometers from here. He has a couple hundred hired thugs on land with him there and he has a group of ninja available there as well. They are the demon brothers of mist village and the the demon Momochi Zabuza. Gatoh has been seen on site right now as well. My team and I are ready to proceed, what are your orders Kira-sama?"

Naruto nodded at Shion-kun's debrief and asked him to meet up with his team at a location that was one and a half click away from it. Naruto turned back to Shiaki-san and told them that under no circumstances were they to engage any enemies whatsoever. He wanted half of his jounin cell to make their way into the land of waves and wait there for him to arrive. "Remember no matter what you see, do not interfere with it. Your job there is to make sure that whatever remaining thugs try to escape their location and try to hide in the country are taken care of forcibly. You have permission to use lethal force if necessary. However, if possible avoid it." Once they had their orders, the jounin's left the spot in a blur and were quickly running across the water at a fast pace. Naruto nodded to his troops and jumped up into the trees to meet at the location that they were supposed to.

Once at the location, Naruto had them form a circle around him with him at its center. "I want to tell you all something before I go ahead with this plan. I want to let you all know that the way you see me right now is not the real me, I am someone else entirely. However I am still the same person who still has the same goals as everyone else here, to rebuild our village." Naruto formed a seal and dropped his henge. The ninja around him were shocked to say the least. The most curious reaction was from Shiaki-san and the very surprising thing was what Shiaki-san uttered next by mistake. Minato-sama. Naruto grinned like a fox and said, "I think you might have me confused with my father Shiaki-san. My name is Uzumaki Naruto and my father is Namikaze Minato and my mother is Uzumaki Kushina. Times were tough in Konoha for me after my father sealed the nine tailed fox in me. It was the reason for which I decided to leave Konoha as they were unable to see the difference between a prisoner and its tenant. I hope you guys won't hold this against me. I will be telling everyone about this tonight after what we are preparing to do today." Naruto smiled at him as they slowly lowered their guard and nodded at him.

"You look exactly like him Naruto, Minato-sama was a good friend of mine and my family as he helped us whenever we were going through financial troubles. I will follow you to wherever you decided to lead me. Be it to glory or the pits of hell but I will be right behind your steps." Shiaki stated his piece firmly. Naruto quickly blinked his eyes to ward off any potential moisture gathering at the edges of his eyes.

He cleared his throat and said, "Right then everyone masks up on your faces. We are going to go in and start disbanding the troupe at the warehouse. I am sactioning the use of lethal force right away as they are a bunch of bandits and rapists that were driven to Gatou by their lust for money. Right then, SIO's move out!" The masked ninja nodded around him and quickly disappeared in the trees. Naruto grinned to himself underneath his tiger mask, it was time to meet the demon of mist village, Zabuza.

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Gatou had been making a lot of money after coming to the land of waves. He had found many missing nins to work for him and those ninjas were really handy in helping him remove all the unwanted thorns on his road. When their job was done instead of paying them, he turned them on each other and had them kill of each other while stating that the remaining ninja would be three times as much money as promised to them. Gatou chuckled to himself as he thought of the Mist missing nin that had taken out everyone efficiently. While it was expensive for him to afford them, it was a lot cheaper then paying all those wayward ninjas. And Gatou had no thought of paying Zabuza either. He chuckled to himself while biting onto the leg of a chicken when a huge explosion was heard outside. Gatou dropped his food onto the table and ran to the window to see what was happening outside. He saw some ninjas in masks engaging Zabuza, Haku and the demon brothers.

Wait it wasn't ninja per say but rather one ninja that was engaging the mist ninja. The blonde haired shinboi with a tiger mask expertly fought them with three others looking similar to him. They fought for a while till the mist ninja were standing back to back with each other. It was at this point when a dark pink coloured shield popped into place effectively trapping the mist ninja in it. Zabuza tried to break the shield but nothing was working. Gatou was feeling sweat trickling down his head to the small of his back very quickly. He moved away from the window and went to his safe in the room. He quickly retrieved some loose cash and deeds that was proof that he owned certain properties around the world. He sneaked out and was about to run away into the forest where a boat would be waiting for him on the other end when a ninja with a dog mask appeared in front of him and tied him up in rope. The ninja hauled Gatou and came back to the clearing where the mist ninja were being held. "Zabuza you son of a bitch what are you doing standing there! I paid you to keep me alive and you are just sitting like a duck there right now. Is this how weak the mist ninja are!" Gatou would have kept on going if not for the sudden spike in the killing intent from Zabuza and the press of cold steel at his throat.

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Zabuza watched as Gatou was forced to his knees and the man with blonde hair and tiger mask leaned down to whisper a few words in his ear. With each word Gatou became paler. When the masked shinobi stepped slightly away from Gatou, Gatou quickly shook his head in affirmative and said that he would do it. Zabuza wondered what it was that he would do, not that he could do much seeing as how all the bandits were massacred and Gatou's last protective shield was trapped behind a barrier. Zabuza watched as the blonde shinobi retrieved some paper from his dark blue cloak and handed it off to the shinobi with the bear mask with a nod. Zabuza narrowed his eyes at that as he saw the bear masked shinobi make one handed seals and the paper to alter slightly. 'Genjutsu,' thought Zabuza. He went to warn Gatou to not do anything but it was too late. Gatou had already signed the papers. The pink shield around them shimmered and dropped out of existence as soon as the papers were signed. Three more shinobi jumped in front of the three shinobi by Gatou. The moment it was done, Zabuza was about to go on the offence when Gatou yelled.

"N-n-n-o-o-o y-ou promi-ss-ed me that as soon as I sign the papers for some of my properties you would let me go," said Gatou. The bear masked ninja shrugged his shoulders and went forward to stab him with his kunai when Gatou yelled, "no wait I have more money than that, I still have more properties then what I gave to you already. A lot more money then you can imagine. I am a lot more useful to you alive then dead. Please have mercy!"

The blonde haired shinobi threw his head back and laughed. It was a laugh that sent chills down his back. "There is nothing more that you could possibly give us anymore Gatou. I am usually much more forgiving but unfortunately some events in my life has made me mature and turn me into a true ninja. A ninja that won't avoid killing if it must be done. And you Gatou must be killed as an example to all others out there that would take advantage of the weak by using their power. As for giving us more money, you just signed everything over already." The blonde shinobi nodded to bear and bear swiftly took out a kunai and slashed Gatou's neck while tossing him aside like a sack of potatoes. The blonde haired shinobi turned his attention back on him and his companions.

"Who are you and why did you attack us?" asked Zabuza.

The blonde haired shinobi chuckled a little and said, "I am a friend as long as you are concerned. I am here to help you out in a way you would have never thought. A week from now a campaign is going to be launched against the hidden village of mist by me and my companions. With us spearheading the attack we are planning on taking out the Mizukage. I heard of you and your struggle to overthrow the Mizukage. I just thought it a professional courtesy to let you know about it. I just thought that it would look good for you if you were there with us spear heading the attack against the Mizukage. Imagine the village resident's thoughts, one of the seven swordsman of the mist village comes back to herald justice upon the corrupt Mizukage. Who else is capable of taking on the mantle after the position is vacant and the civil war put to rest."

Zabuza laughed out loud at the delirious ranting of the masked youth in front of him. "What makes you think that a pathetic whelp that is barely wet behind his ears could possibly take on one of the most powerful man in this era let alone taking over a whole village." One of Naruto's ninjas made to move towards him for the insult, but Naruto intercepted him with a slight gesture with his left hand. With his right hand he removed his mask and grinned at Zabuza, slightly elongating his canines by letting a little of Kyubi's chakra flow through him.

"Believe what you will Zabuza. But I can see that you recognize this face, yes my name is Namikaze Naruto, the son of the golden flash of Konoha. And let me tell you this I am much stronger than he was and I can take over this nation with or without your help. I just felt that with you in charge there the meaningless bloodshed would now end as I know precisely what you feel regarding those tests that they had you perform when you became a genin. Killing off your classmates as a tests, Phaw! Leaves a bad aftertaste in the mouth from an administration point of view. Why would you wish to decrease your numbers as it is. With elite ninja forces numbering at about 3000 and the high mortality rate for a ninja, you would think that you would treasure all those lives and hope that by living another day they would bolster your ninja ranks. Yes I know about those thoughts of yours Zabuza and it is because of such thinking that I believed that you would be the perfect man for the job. Perhaps I found the wrong person afterall." Naruto made a slight signal to his men and they turned around to go through the foliage again.

"Wait! How do you know all those things whelp! What are you getting out of this?" growled Zabuza while putting his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Naruto paused mid turn and stared at Zabuza with a glare on his face. With each passing breath his killing intent spilled out of him and towards the missing nin. Zabuza was soon finding himself questioning the fact if he was facing a boy or a man. His senses were telling him that there was almost something feral about his stance, but his eyes were belying those sentiments. "You will refer to me with respect Zabuza! I have done nothing wrong towards you, heck even threw you a bone, you will take your hand off of your hilt now," when Zabuza made no move to do so, Naruto's killing intent became nearly suffocating. Zabuza looked to his side to see the demon brothers already on their knees from this wild intent. Zabuza slowly removed his hand from his sword and let it hang on to his side harmlessly. All of a sudden the killing intent vanished. "How I know these things is my business and mine alone Zabuza. As to what I am getting is obvious. I am getting all the clans currently caught in the civil war. All those groups are being transferred to another designated location as we speak for their safety. And well with the bloodline clans removed the civil war's cause will disappear. That is my aim, to make the civil war disappear Zabuza. We will meet in the abandoned building that lies fifteen kilometres east of here. Come if you feel that you have the courage to face your own demons rather than hiding in the shadows pretending to fight a war against the Mizukage." With his piece said Naruto and his companions jumped into the trees and disappeared.

"Zabuza-sama, what was that? Who can put out such a feral and concentrated killing intent?" asked Haku as she stood up to get her breathing back in control. Zabuza though just looked at the spot where the blonde had disappeared while the gears in his mind were turning at an insane speed. Haku and the demon brothers missed it but there was a slight shift in Zabuza's posture. No more did he have to wander from countryside to countryside. No more will his goal elude him anymore. No more would he be forced to stand by and watch as his homeland is squandered for the pleasure of the upper echelons of the society. No more would he be restricted, the true demon was unleashed now. The demon that sought to protect his homeland more than anything else. Haku and the demon brothers as Zabuza laughed to himself in a foreboding manner.

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Naruto arrived outside the house that belonged to one of his friends from the past. He stood outside it as the memories of his past assaulted him. Naruto smiled in nostalgia as a sudden noise was heard from the door. The door opened and out came tumbling a six year bold that ran into Naruto's legs and crashed down. "Inari-kun stop being so stubborn and come back in here, your dad will be coming back in a bit, do you really want me to tell him that you did not finish eating your vegetables?" Out came walking Tsunami-san with a scoop in her hand. She fell short of the entrance when she noticed the strangers standing outside her house. She noticed that many wore masks and only one of them didn't and currently he was smiling at her.

"Hello ma'am is Tazuna-san home right now?" asked Naruto politely. It was hard to not tear up at meeting one of his important people outside of the village again. Even though technically for them it was their first time meeting him. Tsunami looked at him and she nodded at him once before calling for Tazuna to come out.

"Tazuna-san may I talk privately with you for the next few minutes, this won't take long." Tazuna nodded and soon the two withdrew to a corner to talk. Tsunami looked at the other men standing there in front of her. One of them suddenly pulled out a kunai and Tsunami tensed. She saw the man hand the kunai handle first to Inari. Inari just looked at the man dubiously before he took the kunai and looked at the man as to what he was supposed to do. The man then turned around, took out another kunai and tossed it into a tree stump that was twenty feet away. Inari seeing what he did tried to imitate him and nearly succeeded. At his near success he jumped up and down in joy and ran back to get those kunai out of the tree stump and continued to throw them back at it again. On his fifth attempt he was already hitting the stump accurately and quite quickly too. Tsunami kept a wary eye on her child as the blonde man handed over a bunch of papers to Tazuna-san and all of a sudden Tazuna started crying and was loudly thanking the man over and over again. The man looked up at Inari and said a few more words before giving a signal to his ninja and they all disappeared in a swirl of leaves and dust. Tazuna walked back towards them and said the last thing that anyone expected.

"Gatou's dead. That young man that came here just came by to give me all his money and he basically ordered me to build a bridge that would connect the island to the mainland so that our little country wouldn't have to suffer as much."

Tsunami just watched him in disbelief and she asked the first thing that came to her mind afterwards, "What does he want in return from us then?"

"That's the thing, he doesn't want much, he just wants us to join his village hidden in the whirlpool that has been started for the last year now. Originally we were a part of them anyways so I don't see how anyone can oppose to such a good offer," said Tazuna jovially.

"So it's over then, right?" asked Tsunami who was still in shock. At Tazuna's nod of approval she promptly fell to her knees and started crying in relief. If things had gone on the way they had, she was sure that Gatou would have resorted to taking some action against her husband but with this new man's help they had avoided any possible calamities that might have befallen them. "What was his name father?"

"His name was Uzumaki Naruto, Kami bless his soul," said Tazuna while looking towards the wide expanse of a forest.

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"Fire Relase: fireball no jutsu," yelled a boy with red eyes as he released a large fireball the size of a house towards his brother as his brother quickly moved out of its way. Shinji and Aoi were currently practicing their ninjutsu and dodging skills by practicing on water. They had both been progressing relatively well and Kira-sensei was really proud of them. He didn't let a single moment go where he would fail to praise them. It was difficult at first to earn even a single praise from their sensei as no matter what they did it was never enough. But soon as they started to improve and take their training more seriously, their sensei would compliment them right away. It was turning into a drug where to please their sensei they had started to push themselves really hard in their training. It had remained like that until a couple of months ago sensei had told them "I won't praise you anymore as I don't need to. The two of you understand the value of hard work and are willing to work really hard in order to defend what you really value. I am proud of you boys." It was one of the best days in Shinji Takamura's life.

"Shinji, Aoi-kun come on back we need to get back to the school in time for tonight's celebrations!" yelled their third teammate Anya-chan. Anya was a red head with green eyes and many a times Shinji had wondered if she was related to their sensei in any way. She was the same age as him, but for some reason she fancied Mokuto from class B. Mokuto and him did not get along well at all. Suffice to say that their relationship was similar to Naruto and Sasuke's relationship back in konoha.

"We'll be there in a second Anya-chan!" I yelled back as committing such an action as yelling was beneath Aoi-kun. There was a certain sarcastic humour that existed in his brother. He could be playful one second while praying pranks and turn serious the next second without even blinking an eye. They quickly ran towards the shore and made their way towards the school.

"Oh look who decided to show up, why do you look like a drowned rat dobe?" asked the snide voice of Mokuto, the person standing in league for the rookie of the year award in their age group.

"Teme!" growled Shinji, "It's because I was training to become much stronger than I am, then again you look really fresh, you were probably walking around town yelling look my name is Mokuto and I am a pretty boy that loves other pretty boys." Shinji mimicked a squeaky voice towards the end to further infuriate his rival.

"Dobe," growled Mokuto and he was about to advance on him when Shinji was hit on top of his head by Anya-chan from behind. She already had a large tick on her forehead.

"Stop antagonizing Mokuto-kun Shinji," yelled Anya, this caused for Shinji to start muttering inaudibly. Anya ignored him and asked Mokuto with heart shapes in her eyes, "Want to go to the celebration with me together tonight Mokuto-kun."

"Hn," Mokuto walked off with Anya following after him.

"Dammit it's not fair. Why is she after him like that, doesn't she realize that I am a lot stronger than that guy." Said Shinji angrily.

"Well Shinji to put things in perspective, you are the only guy in your group that still can't do a perfect bunshin. In fact most of them end up white faced and dead. Its a surprise as to how you can even do the fire release jutsus. Your affinity towards it must be strong," mused Aoi loudly.

Shinji scowled at him and walked ahead of him to see that many of the ninjas that were not on a mission had shown up and with the number of mission being scarce that meant a lot of them had shown up. Quite a bit of the civilian population had shown up as well. Since sensei opened up the Uzumaki library for public use, many civilians had learned many useful things from it. Ranging from cooking to building bridges to administration. They had quite the treasure available there. Of course Sensei had combed the library for any materials that he felt shouldn't be there and stored them elsewhere. One of those was an archive for summoning animals. Shinji looked up and saw his sensei entering the decorated area with a woman trailing behind him. Shinji decided to go introduce himself. "Hey sensei, who's that pretty lady behind you?"

Mei smiled at the cute boy and leaned down towards him so that they would be eye level. "Hello Shinji-kun, my name is Mei Terumi, nice to meet you." Mei smiled at him with her eyes closed.

"Yeah yeah whatever baa-chan, hey sensei when are you going to teach us a new jutsu again?" asked Shinji completely disregarding the woman now that she had lost her interest.

Naruto on his part grinned as Shinji had just committed the one mistake that he shouldn't have. Shinji felt a cold shiver go through his frame and turned around to see Mei's face cast in a dark glow with angry eyes that were pointing right at him. "Shut up or I will kill you!" Shinji being himself opened his mouth to retort only finding it full of dirt as he was smacked down into the ground. Naruto chuckled to himself as he led Mei Terumi further in and towards the podium reserved for the speakers.

Naruto glanced around at various clan heads as he shook hands with them and re introduced Mei Terumi to them. They all took it all in a stride as everyone knew exactly who she was and the type of power she commanded. Many were shocked at seeing her here when they fully expected her to be a part of a campaign back in mist village against the Yondaime Mizukage. Naruto noted the type of clans that had shown up. The clans ranged from clans specializing in healing ninjutsu and producing amazing back up ninjas, to the Kaguya clan that is very combat oriented and focuses on direct assault. One clan focused on building weapons and this clan was responsible for making the seven swords of the mist, while another clan focused on the delicate intricacies of kenjutsu. The most surprising was a clan that focused on creating different types of ninjutsu and using different seals to attain their goals. Naruto could relate the most to them due to his direct ancestors' recent work. The next were a clan that had ninjas born with heightened sensing abilities such as hearing and smelling. Perfect for being a tracking team. All in all to say the least there was quite a big number of clans present in the village now and tonight was the night when with the help of the ninja in the village, he would establish the village hidden in the mist and give them all their new identity.

Naruto walked up to the podium and called for everyone's attention. "Hello hello hello, Can I have everyone's attention please?" The crowd quieted down to look and listen to the man that had brought them all together under such secrecy. "Tonight is the night that we officially become a village. Tonight is the night when we bond with each other in bonds that are stronger then steel itself and more powerful then the sun. Tonight is the night that we recognize our history and lament the warriors that have lain down their lives to make this possible. Tonight is the night that we honour our ancestors, those who chose to survive in hope that the day will arrive when this village will rise from its ashes again. Tonight is the night where we shall dedicate it to those who answered the call of Uzushiogakure. Tonight is the night where we celebrate the rebirth of our homeland. Tonight is dedicated to Uzushiogakure's precious soldiers and their unbending will. Feel proud of yourself for standing where you stand, for tonight is dedicated to you and you alone." Naruto broke off here as a smattering of applause was heard throughout the clearing. Civilians and ninjas alike were yelling and hollering at the top of their lungs at hearing their leader speak about the resurrection of their village.

"We are the sword that when shattered has reforged itself tirelessly. We are the sword that whence became dull never stopped to complain. We are the sword's hand that when became weary never stopped moving. We are of the strong make of the sword, hard at the edges, unbending, but yet soft at our core, flexible. We are the shield that protects all of what we hold dear. We are the armour that will protect our future generations to come and their children as well. For while we live we shall lay down our lives but we shall not forsake our vigil. For while we may get weary, tired and old we shall not forsake our vigil. For while we may die and shed our mortal flesh we shall not forsake our vigil. For while we may be dead, we shall be reborn when Uzushio is in peril to take up that mantle and reclaim our vigil. We are the proud warriors, protectors, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, grandfathers, and grandmothers of Uzushiogakure. No longer will a child of Uzushiogakure have to cower in fear anymore. No more will they be left alone as wanderers. Tonight we have given them a home, we have given them security and we have given them the power that comes with the truth. The hard to earn but simple truth," Naruto paused quietly. "We belong," whispered Naruto in the quietness of the stadium. "No matter how awkward we may be, no matter how weird our manner of acting is, no matter what sorts of background we may have had, we belong. No longer will be shunned from anywhere as previously, because we belong. No longer will any seek to take advantage of us, no longer will they believe us to be easy targets simply because we belong. We belong to Uzushiogakure."

The crowd was stunned at their impromptu leader's speech. The emotions that it stirred within them were colossal. Many a person could be found within the crowd rubbing their eyes and taking deeper breaths then necessary. Naruto looked across each individual face in the crowd. He cleared his throats of the emotions that were causing it to clog. "However mundane and simple this truth maybe, the fact remains that our people had to struggle to find this home and we shall do everything in our power to keep it secure. I thank you all for coming when I asked you to come join me. For without you there is no home, for without you there is no security, for without you there is no love, and finally for without you there is no family. For orphans such as me, you are the greatest gift that Kami could have given to me. Uzushiogakure, a home that reminds me of my mother's warmth. Uzushiogakure a home where it reminds me of my father's strength. Uzushiogakure, my home," Naruto took a tremulous breath, "Our home."

The crowd remained silent for a split second before roaring to the skies in the loudest voice possible. They yelled their village's name as loud as they could. Naruto quickly hopped off the podium and started making his way towards the center of the village that was about 100 meters away from where he was. The crowd followed in his wake as Naruto stepped into the massive clearing in the middle. The SIO formed a perimeter around him where they cordoned off everyone so that they couldn't come closer than 10 meters of him. Once at the center of the circle Naruto yelled loudly, "There is a truth that I must confess to. My real name is not Uzumaki Kira, but rather it is Uzumaki Naruto. I had to keep this quite because not a year ago I used to be a resident in Konoha. But the treatment that I received there was worse then you can imagine, for you see I have the nine tails fox sealed in me. No matter what I did, or said, none of them would see me for a person but rather see the fox sealed in me. Tonight I will show you what that village has lost. Tonight I will show you power that you cannot even imagine it in your wildest dreams. And it is with this power that I vow to protect this village till my dying breath as one of its ninja."

With his piece said, Naruto dropped his henge so that he went back to his regular looks and put his hands through various symbols. "Earth release: Crater no jutsu!" Soon a crater formed that was two meters in wide in front of him. Naruto retrieved a sealing scroll from his coat and applied some blood to it. As soon as the scroll opened a walnut sized seed fell into his palm. Naruto dropped the seed in the crater and sealed it up. He jumped up in the air and formed ten other shadow clones. Soon the clones fell at different edges of the circle with him at its center. They all accessed the Kyubi's chakra and started to pour it into the land.

The viewers watched as Kira, no as Naruto placed his hands on the ground and started to glow a fluorescent yellow. The ground started to quake beneath their feet as the ninja around the perimeter started to push them back a little. The people were not afraid in the slightest, they trusted the yellow clad ninja with black markings on him completely. All of a sudden, a thick vine sprouted near the central Naruto. That Naruto moved away and outwards until he was outside the circle and then started to apply chakra from the outside.

Naruto sent his chakra through the earth and into the seed and pulsed it in there in rhythm with his clones. Sowly but surely a thick vine creeped out that grew taller as the seconds passed by. Soon the vine was getting much thicker, it was nearly 8 meters in diameter. It's height was three times that of the tallest building in the village so far. Soon the vine started to grow branches and from that leaves. The villagers watched with awe as a huge tree was erected in the center of the village. But it didn't stop there. As soon as the tree was erect, it started drawing on Naruto's chakra on its own. Soon the clones popped out of existence as they ran out of chakra. Naruto's expression was strained at this point. He was struggling to provide the chakra at such a fast pace, but he would be damned if he let a tree beat him in terms of endurance. Naruto was shocked out of his concentration slightly as he felt two pairs of arms being placed on the trunk next to him. He saw Aoi and Shinji pouring their chakra in the three as well. Seeing the kids stepping forward, one by one the ninjas started to step forward and provide it chakra until they felt like they were running out. They all took turns and provided the tree as much chakra as they could expand. Naruto smiled as he focused once again and felt Mei Terumi press down next to him. The people looked questioningly at her but Naruto grinned at her as she returned it with a smile. Soon Naruto felt himself approaching the precipice of the threshold that he had read about regarding the tree. He gave one last push and pushed out a surge of chakra that pushed the tree over the threshold.

The result was simultaneous. Golden lines slithered through the tree as the tree visibly twisted and the rustling of leaves could be heard in the quiet as the twisting trunk resulted in forming a hollow arch at the bottom of the tree. Naruto nodded at Shiaki-san and watched as Shiaki-san and his ninja brought in the arch and placed it at the bottom of the tree. The tree soon connected with the arch and seemed to come alive. The various seals around the village started to glow as well as their defence mechanism were now being activated.

"Well all of you must be wondering what this tree is. Well let me tell you, this tree is the tree that will protect our village in the times to come. It is a symbol of hope for us. This is the tree that our ancestors revered above all. Its name is Avendesora or otherwise known as the Tree of Life. Treat it with respect and it will never fail to guard our village in the trying times to come." Naruto paused here for a spot of breath as he coughed slightly. The villagers were still awed by the tree in front of them. Soon children began to come forth an started to run circles around the tree. Some of the genins started to walk up the tree and into the branches above while laughing loudly. Naruto smiled to himself as he saw their carefree attitude. "Now with all of that out of the way, I would like to introduce to you our new leader." At the villager's questioning looks Naruto chuckled to himself. "No, there is no way that I can lead a village properly yet, I still have much to learn before I am capable of doing so. Till then I am going to leave you in the most capable hands of Mei Terumi. Our very Shodaime Uzunokage." Naruto stepped away from her and bowed to her with a silent Uzunokage-sama. The other ninjas followed his example and did as he did.

They moved back to the clearing away from the tree as the Shodaime addressed the village. "My name is Mei Terumi, first off let me start off by congratulating you on finally succeeding in your endeavour. My job is to safeguard this village and I take that duty and responsibility willingly and whole heartedly. But honestly you should have prayed a little harder because Kami decided to joke with you and toss you blondie over there as your temporary leader," Mei smiled with good humour as light laughter was heard in the crowd. She disregarded Naruto's slight "hey" and moved on with her speech. "I have already approached the Water Daimyo that had shifted all of the missions towards the Mist village and I have convinced him to have faith in us. Soon the missions will increase in number and with that we shall finally be able to stand up and tall. And tall we shall stand, I promise you that." She said a few more nonsensical things before saying, "Well don't let me keep you from your party anymore, enjoy everyone and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to come talk to me."

Mei stepped off the podium and was soon swamped by various clan leaders and influential figures from the ninja council. A major restructuring would be in effect to provide a more stable structure to the village. Naruto slinked off to the edge of the party to allow Mei to form the much needed connections that she needed to without Naruto's interference. He looked up as Masumi-san stalked up to him with a glare on her face. "So you are Uzumaki _Naruto_ are you?"

"Ne ne Masumi-san I had my reasons for lying to you and the kids because I didn't want anyone in Konoha finding out." Naruto started to sweat bullets as Masumi-san just started to drill bullets into his skull.

"Yet you still decided to hold off on telling us after we had been together for a year. You know what this calls for?" Naruto started to sweat even more severely now. "This calls for no ramen for a month young man."

A distant scream was heard at the edges of the village. Animals perked their ears to hear the distress in the noise, it was something that they had never heard before.

Naruto was still sulking about losing his ramen rights for a month while sitting in a corner by himself. He saw Mei-chan making her way towards him and quickly tried to stand up to show her respect. While Naruto might not be big on respect overall, it was important at the moment as Naruto did not wish to appear as if he was usurping Mei-chan's influence in any manner. Mei moved her hand to tell him to sit down. Naruto did so and asked her, "So what did the clan heads want with you so suddenly?"

"Nothing out of the usual, the politics has already started. Many of them were wondering how it is that they may get the upper hand. The clans from mist believe that I would be partial towards them simply due to the fact that we all come from another village. If only they step through that portal, then they would know that we are more of a single entity then either of them would ever believe." Naruto chuckled next to her as he heard her complain about the politics.

"If you want you can start to have to jounins enter the arch now. The arch will open for anyone basically, so I think it would be a good idea if you were to go about securing it to make sure that children don't step into it by mistake."

Mei looked at Naruto as he subtly reminded her that he didn't want their enemies to have easy access to the portal. Mei nodded with him and said, "Already on it, I asked the commander of SIO (security intelligence officer) to post his trusted men around the base of the tree so that no one can do anything funny to it." Mei took a breath to blow the air out of her face as she watched people drink and laugh and dance and have a good time in general. "So what's next for you, what are you planning to do Naruto-kun?"

Naruto sat there in contemplation before he said, "You know how I told you that when I ask to bring someone into the village you won't question me, well I only meant one ninja specifically." At Mei-chan's curious look, Naruto grinned at her similar to when he was a kid. "I think its time for me to pay Inu-san a special visit."

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In a clearing close to Iwa in a camp, a dark haired man suddenly felt an ominous shudder go through him. He looked up towards the moon before shrugging once again and going back to eating his pocky.

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**And that's the end of the chapter guys. Sorry for the late update, I am writing an exam right now and it was taking up a lot of my time, but its done now and hopefully I aced it lol. As usual read and review.**

**Next chapter – Chunin Exams Begin!**


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters. This story is not being used for making any profits whatsoever, its sole purpose is for pleasure reading only. The only thing I own is the plot.

Chapter 4 – Passage of Time

It had been a month exactly after the resurrection of Avendesora and it's Arch. The jounins and chunins had already stepped through the arch and lived the last few moments of Uzushio prior to its fall from grace. They saw the manner in which they had fought valiantly against their foes but in the end it hadn't been enough. They had to flee by using ships and abandoning their village and watch as it was razed to the ground from the ships. Many a ninja would walk out of the arch after seven days of entering it and promptly pass out from sheer physical and mental exhaustion. True to their Ancestors' will, no one was allowed to pass through the arch with weapons at hand.

Naruto shrugged those thoughts aside as he focused on what he was working on. He currently had a slender sword in hand and was working through the different katas that he had learned from Chojuro-san. Chojuro had come with the Uzunokage from the land hidden in the Mist. With them they had brought one other swordsman from the mist. With their help, the Uzunokage had managed to set up a program through which chunins and above ranks were tested for their aptitude with swords and if they were found to be decent at it then they were enrolled into the program to teach them the tricks of the seven swordsman of the mist. Naruto was one of the few that were in fact selected to be a part of this training regimen.

Over the past year, Naruto had focused on learning as many different types of elemental abilities as he could. The reason for him being able to develop a balanced affinity for all his elements was due to him binding his epicentre. The epicentre is a core that shifts towards a certain elemental form depending on the person's nature. However, by binding the epicentre and manipulating it through rigorous exercise, Naruto had managed to force it into shifting towards all elemental forms equally. He now had an equal affinity towards the five elemental forms: lightning, fire, wind, water, and earth. However, the drawback to such a method is that while he had attained the required results, the affinity was not as strong. It was diluted by quite a bit. Naruto had wracked his brain to see if he could overcome it, although there was nothing to be done, the only thing to do is to keep practicing until he achieved the desired result.

There were three levels of affinity that is possible for a chakra user and their elemental form. The first level is similar to an average shinobi's affinity towards their second elemental form. The second level of affinity is similar to an average shinobi's affinity towards their first elemental form (hence the affinity is much stronger). The third level of affinity, which is extremely rare, is the case in which the affinity between the shinobi and the elemental form is so powerful that the number of seals required to do techniques could be decreased, or in some techniques, the seals wouldn't even be needed. Naruto had sworn up a storm in the library when he realized that he was still only at level one in elemental training.

The obvious gap in his training since he was a child, paired with his lack of knowledge and not having a strong affinity for an elemental form at the moment lead to Naruto being a chunin of Uzushio. Naruto was sort of happy and disappointed at the same time when he was nominated as a chunin of the village. He wouldn't be lying if he said that he kind of expected more what with the amount of power that he now heralded due to having control over the Kyubi's chakra. Naruto shrugged his shoulder as he scratched his shoulder and rolled it in its socket. He readjusted his dark blue flak vest and looked at the students in front of him.

After knowing the fact that Naruto knew quite a bit about seals, (compared to others since it is known as a lost art for a reason, very little is known about fuinjutsu) the Uzunokage had put him in charge of the School of Gifted's hopeful students. Naruto was in charge of introducing them to the sealing arts, while seeing if anyone within the group had any talent in the area or not. In the beginning he had to be forced into the duty, he had put of one heck of a fight, but alas the buxom red head won between the two stubborn headed individuals.

While Naruto found teaching taxing, he realized its importance as time went on. After dealing with Shinji's pranks, he grew a new sense of appreciation for his old sensei in Konoha. While Iruka-sensei always yelled at him, Naruto had to admit that he was one of the first people to ever look after him. With that he remembered that he still had to send the money that he borrowed for the rasengan training back to him. Naruto chuckled and scratched the back of his head as in his zeal for forming the village as soon as possible, he hadn't written a single letter to any of them yet. Naruto thought that it was perhaps time that he should write one and send it back, the only problem was how to do it. He couldn't allow the letter to be traced back to him, not yet. Naruto had taken quite a bit of care from avoiding a certain white haired ninja when he came traipsing around Uzushio poking his nose into the village while wondering who the last Uzumaki was. With the help of the Uzunokage and SIO they had managed to plant the fake story of Uzumaki Kira in his mind and sent him on his way. It was only when the next Icha Icha issue was released that Naruto realized that their little endeavour had been successful as no information about him was listed within it.

Naruto sighed as he reminisced about his days with the perverted sanin on the road while he tried to code his info into an adult novel. Naruto looked out towards the students and he realized the feeling of pride that his Sensei's must have felt upon his minor accomplishments. That is to say if their feelings were similar to anything that he was feeling currently. Naruto after finding the rewarding feelings from teaching after the first week had taken on the training of one whole class, although unfortunately, or fortunately depending on the situation, the class missed out on being taught history. That was the one subject that Naruto was not willing to touch, even with a meter long pole. Naruto sighed as he drummed his fingers on the desk as his students were writing down the answers to the questions he had assigned to them.

Naruto had decided to follow his own curriculum compared to the curriculum that the Konoha academy used to follow. Meaning his curriculum was a lot more hands on compared to the other classes. Naruto's class practiced the practical arts of ninjas more than the theories. Naruto felt that those things were absolutely useless and never helped one in the field as they never helped him one bit in the past. Naruto stretched his arms over his head and groaned with appreciation as kinks were loosened across his five and a half feet frame. He had put on quite a bit of muscle recently thanks to the fast recovery that he had. He had already been doing basic physical exercises to build muscle and increase his speed but lately his training had been stepped up. One of the former swordsman, Chojuro, who was currently in the Mist village to help with the aftermath of their strike against it, was teaching him the fine art of Kenjutsu.

The strike team had been led by the SIO commander, Shiaki-san with Zabuza leading another with the demon brothers and Mei leading another. It was difficult for Naruto to explain to the Uzunokage about the reasons for which they should go out of their way to help the Mist village ninja. As, even if the top pecking order was responsible for instigating the killings of clans, the task was ultimately enforced by the regular ninjas. For some of the clan members, it was unforgivable to even speak of those scums in favourable light, let alone trying to lend aid to them in any manner. And the Uzunokage being one that belonged to a clan previously understood their grievances and was reluctant to act on it. Naruto had to spend two days, shut inside the chamber with the council, pitching ideas and arguments back and forth for them to accept his words. Sometimes he wondered if he had done the right thing by providing the position of power to someone else. As even with the high standing that he held due to initiating the chain of events that led to the rise of Uzushio, he couldn't sway their minds completely. It was thankfully Kanashiya-san who leant support to Naruto that convinced the other clan heads to follow his lead. After seeing that the clans would not feel too burdened by the loss that they would feel by trying to aid their perpetrators, the Uzunokage declared for swift strike teams to be made so that they could sneak through the night and attack their enemy, Mizukage, swiftly.

The goal was to engage the Mizukage, the jinchuriki directly, while trying to avoid unnecessary casualty. However some things just weren't meant to be. Naruto stopped his kenjutsu practice and went to the classroom so that he could collect the tests on seals from the children. He thought back to their attack on Mist and sighed sadly.

_ "Are we ready to move out Uzunokage-sama?" asked one of the masked SIO._

_ Mei nodded as she signalled towards Naruto and Chojuro to take their positions on her flanks. "Zabuza and Shiaki, the two of you are to move in from east and west while trying to avoid any conflicts whatsoever. My team and I shall take a ship out to the waters and try to flank the backside of the village as even when I was in the village, they never expected an attack from that direction. Meaning it is very vulnerable. Now then-"_

_ Mei was interrupted by her bodyguard Ao. "Pardon me Uzunokage-sama, but there is good reason why they don't expect an attack from that direction. The waters that lead towards the island are often riddled with whirlpools. So fierce is the water current that many ship owners won't even imagine trying to brave those waters. How can you even possibly make it there unharmed?"_

_ Before Mei could answer, Naruto stepped into the argument. "The whirlpools are caused by a vast array of seals on one of the islands located near the village. The island is perhaps fifteen clicks away from the mainland, making it far enough for anyone to not be able to launch an attack from there, but close enough so that they could keep an eye on it. We are going to take a boat towards the island and make it there safely and after that, I am going to tap into the seal network there and unravel it. It shouldn't take me more than a couple of hours. After which we will travel ten kilometres towards the village by running on water, as we don't wish the ship to be spotted."_

_ "What about the last five kilometres then?" asked another SIO member from Zabuza's team._

_ "Well the last five is somewhat of a secret, suffice to say that we will instantly pop into the town with a flash of yellow," winked Naruto while putting on a wide grin on his face._

_ "Alright then people, enough questions, move out and take your positions. Remember the goal of sending everyone from different parts is to make sure that we engage the Mizukage while you keep the reinforcements at bay. Avoid as many casualties as possible, but if killing someone would keep someone from sending out an alarm to the others, do not hesitate to kill them. That is all, move out!" Mei clapped her hands and started to make her way towards the shore._

_**Six hours later – Across the wall of Mist Village**_

_ Naruto flashed in to the village using the hiraishin no jutsu with the last of the strike team that was deployed towards the island. "We are in position Mei-chan, let us know when you want us to move in."_

_ Mei nodded curtly and kept an eye towards the sky in the directions to look for the tell tale sign of her teams. She waited for fifteen more minutes before a slight grey haze grew into the sky from two directions. They were very slight, and something that could have been missed if someone wasn't looking for it. Mei nodded her head to Chojuro who made a slight movement with two of his fingers towards the rest of their fifteen man squad. The SIO agents nodded their heads and moved out to surround the perimeter and assassinate any guards that were present within the building. _

_ Mei swiftly moved towards the side of the building and started scaling it with Chojuro and Naruto behind her. The trio moved into one of the windows and paused for a second as Naruto created five shadow clones and sent them in different directions. They jumped to the top of the ceiling and stayed there in the corner out of sight. Once a few minutes passed by, Naruto nodded and dropped down to the floor, silent on his feet. The other two imitated him and started to follow him, while trying to stay as quite as possible. They quickly came upon a door that was guarded by two shinobi standing erect in front of it._

_ Naruto chuckled to himself as he wondered whether those were shinobi or flipping samurais standing there. But with that thought in mind he noticed something else. It was odd that as paranoid as the Mizukage was, there were only two guards positioned in front of the door. Naruto's eyes widened in realization and before he could say anything, Chojuro had already moved towards them at a quick pace while taking out his double hilted sword and smacking the two ninjas horizontally in a brutal manner. Naruto quickly sprung into action as four more ninjas appeared behind Chojuro as they were about to attack him. Naruto quickly formed three more shadow clones and moved with them while taking out their kunai and throwing it towards the base of the skulls of the ninjas. The ninjas quickly ducked and turned around in order to avoid being impaled by the kunai, only to watch a spinning rasengan an inch away from their faces. Naruto grimly wiped the blood off of his hands as the clones dispelled after brutally taking care of their respective enemy._

_ Naruto glared at Chojuro for a second before he moved towards the doors and silently slipped through them. The four ninja outside had been foolish enough to not raise an alarm. The three found themselves in the bedroom and watched as a figure lying on the bed covered by blankets moved in a rhythmic manner. Naruto nodded towards his companions and motioned for them to move forward. Chojuro quickly took a hold of his sword and walked towards the bed in preparation of attacking the Mizukage. Naruto stayed back in case something were to go wrong._

_ As Chojuro approached the Mizukage's head, Mei had moved towards his feet. They both silently held a brief conversation through looks alone, before Mei ripped the blanket off of the prone form and watched as Chojuro swung his sword down on the bed. A yellow hammer enveloped the sword and it crashed into the bed ferociously. Naruto waited with bated breath and watched waiting for their confirmation. They had opted for brute force because as Naruto had said, certain jinchuriki had certain capabilities. So this was to make sure that they could overcome those capabilities regardless of what they may be. They all watched as the dust settled in the room. Mei reached her hand in to pull out Yagura's body, but what came out was instead a tattered pillow. Naruto stared in horror as Mei looked towards him and her eyes opened wide and her mouth opened to scream at him. Next thing that Naruto knew was cold water as he was shunted out of the castle like building and into the waters from which they came. Naruto fought for air as he broke the surface of the water in time to see Mei and Chojuro retreating towards him with a fast moving blur coated in purple chakra behind them._

_ Naruto narrowed his eyes as the purple blur was about to intercept them. Naruto quickly created six clones and sent them to deter the purple blur for as long as they could, allowing for the his partners to make it to him. The clones fought valiantly, while Mei and Chojuro dropped next to him. "Ok things didn't work out according to plan A, now for plan B. We have to retreat quickly to the island from which we came from while keeping him busy and luring him towards it. Be careful guys, he is using all three of his tails power." Mei and Chojuro nodded as each took up flanking positions that were about a hundred meters from where he was. They had already decided that Naruto would engage in a hand to hand fight while Mei and Chojuro would lend him support from the sidelines. They were barely one kilometre away from the village on the waters and they could already hear the battle occurring in the city. The other teams were responsible for destroying the enemies' HQ while sowing confusion within their enemy. And while this confusion existed, they were to eradicate the purist ninjas down to the last drop of _

_blood. Only then would Zabuza step in and put a handle on the situation, to say the least. _

_ Naruto focused as he turned on his yellow chakra coat that is available to him now. Yagura, now having incapacitated his clones in a brutal manner, rushed towards him as quickly as he could. Naruto quickly flashed through his favourite hand sign as ten more clones rushed towards the purple blur. All the time Naruto and his party was steadily moving backwards over the water. Naruto was following Chojuro, as he personally had no idea in which direction he was heading, only that he was aligned with wherever Chojuro was heading. While Yagura finished off the clones, Naruto was preparing his rasenshuriken attack. The last of the clones died as a tail impaled it through the stomach. Yagura howled loudly to the sky, all sense lost on him, he was a beast in his very heart at this moment. He tried to surge towards Naruto as he was responsible for annoying him to no tomorrow. Yagura was suddenly stopped as Mei attacked him with her Lava release attack. _

_ Yagura howled in pain as the attack started to burn him. He quickly amplified the bijuu's chakra coat around him to stop himself from burning. Mei retreated further back from the formation and started to create a haze of her boil release behind Naruto. Naruto stopped there with his rasenshuriken in his hand and waited for Yagura to show him a slight opening. 'There,' thought Naruto as he moved in and quickly shoved his attack in the back of Yagura's tails. Naruto quickly moved away from him. He watched as his attack intensified cutting up the chakra coat and Yagura in various places. Cuts appeared and healed at an inhuman pace. Yagura roared to the skies in his agony as he levelled his hate and anger filled stare on Naruto. They were now only four kilometres from the island. Yagura yelled once more and walked away from the attacks while panting slightly. He rushed towards Naruto with his claws extended._

_ Naruto turned tail and started running as quickly as he could. He watched as Yagura was gaining on him. Naruto quickly took out one of the tri-pronged kunai and threw it in front of it so that it could sail past the haze created by Mei. Chojuro was watching in the side for Naruto to throw his kunai. After he saw that Naruto had taken note of his position he quickly started making hand signs and yelled "Water Release: Swirling blast jutsu." Chojuro sunk under the water for a few meters and spread his arms out in front of him as a large amount of water propelled him towards the island. His part was over in luring their target to the island. The next part was the much harder one. They had to fight the monster on the island and keep it busy while Naruto tried to leech the bijuu chakra out of him and then the bijuu ultimately. Chojuro hauled himself out of the water and watched the fight from the shoreline as Mei joined him quickly. They both turned towards the shore to see that Yagura was about to grab Naruto before Naruto disappeared in a yellow flash and appeared much closer to them._

_ The beast howled in fury at losing its target once again. Chojuro shivered in fear at thinking how he might be able to face such a beast. Mei laid her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it once before she started to move towards the middle of the rocky island. Naruto quickly approached the shore and met them. "He will be here in a minute guys, I just need you to keep him busy for a few minutes before the seal activates. Now remember, even after the activation of the seal, he might have some power in him, as the seal will only draw out the bijuu's power and the bijuu itself, but Yagura will still have his own chakra. Usually with this method of extraction of bijuu the jinchuriki will remain alive for a couple of hours before dying from receiving such a shock to their chakra coils. Keep him busy for a few minutes and the seals to hold him in place should activate as well." Naruto nodded at them as he moved away from the terrain and stopped drawing on Kurama's chakra. With the chakra coat off, the clearing plunged back into the eerie darkness. Naruto swiftly went to his position and took a seated position as he started going through hand seals quickly._

_ With a loud roar Yagura launched himself in the middle of the island where Mei and Chojuro were waiting for him. They quickly started using guerrilla tactics against him. Naruto closed his eyes to increase his concentration and his speed while praying to Kami that his companions survived this. The minutes went by at an excruciatingly slow pace. Mei and Chojuro were slowly slowing down while accumulating cuts and bruises on various parts of their body._

_ "Dammit Naruto, hurry up there would you!" roared Mei as she landed a vicious kick on Yagura's chest. The beast howled in pain as it was pushed back while Mei cursed under her breath and limped back. The chakra coat inflicted damage to them for even toughing it. Chojuro quickly moved in and used his double hilted sword to swing downwards on the beast only to watch in horror as the beast took hold of the blade with one hand and pulled on it. Chojuro sailed through the air and watched slowly as the beast pulled his clawed hand back to put it through his stomach. A few fleeting thoughts of his life went through Chojuro's mind as he closed his eyes, accepting his fate._

_ Naruto suddenly opened his eyes and slammed his hand down on the seal. "Seal Release: Heaven's wrath!" The island came alive as chains made out of black ink suddenly encompassed the surroundings before shooting towards Yagura and nailing him to the ground. Mei quickly ran and took Chojuro away from the jinchuriki lest he be able to break his bond. Yagura growled and roared angrily at the blonde as he kept his hand on the ground while taking out a thin two and a half feet vase from behind his back. He placed the vase down on the ground in front of his hand and started to apply more chakra in the seal. The beast howled in rage as slowly but steadily its power was collected and started to pass into the vase. _

_ Mei and Chojuro watched with their eyes open as more and more of the purple chakra was sucked away from Yagura as the jinchuriki yelled out loud to the sky. His voice started to get raw and scratchy with the sheer volume of the noise generated in his throat. Naruto visibly strained to keep the flow on the seal activated. He felt his chakra reserves slowly but steadily decreasing as well. 'Not yet,' thought Naruto, 'I still have to drain the three tails from him.' Naruto increased his pressure on the seal and he watched as a translucent version of the Isobu (three tails) appeared out of Yagura's stomach. Isobu resisted the pull of the vase but ultimately it proved too much for it and in a flash it was pulled into the vase. Naruto finally took his hand off of the floor and performed four more seals before putting a lid on the vase and rotating it so that the black marks around it were matched. He applied a little chakra to it and the lid was sealed. Naruto put the vase down and fell down on the floor panting for breath. _

_ The seals around Yagura broke as he fell down on the ground. He looked around him bewildered at his surroundings, before he came to realize that he was finally free of the monster within him and the genjutsu that was placed on him. Yagura sat weakly on the ground and laughed as he felt tears falling down his eyes and cried at his short but nonetheless new found freedom. _

Naruto smiled in a bittersweet manner as he remembered the conversation that followed after. He learnt of Yagura being captive in his own body because of Madara. Naruto had felt really bad for not being able to save Yagura as he was never aware that the things done by him were involuntary. They had quickly taken him back to the Mist Village and he had used the last of his time in his life to ensure peace in his village. He had ordered his shinobi to stand down and allowed Zabuza to claim himself as the Godaime Mizukage. Naruto lamented to himself at the one comment made to him by Yagura. He had said, "We are jinchuriki's Naruto. By its very definition we are human sacrifices. In my case I was a sacrifice that worked against my people. I couldn't amount to much in my life, but you would think that I would be at least a decent sacrifice if nothing else huh?" Naruto had cried and consoled his companion in the last of his life. This was the harsh reality of the world in which they lived in.

A young child that was forced to become a jinchuriki. A young child who was then forced to be subjected to control of another. A young child who was forced to attain the leadership of his village by shedding blood. A young child who had to sit there captive in his mind as he ordered the butchering of his own village. A young child who never had the chance to grow up because of the harsh manner in which life treated him. Because for all purposes, Yagura's body maybe old now, but he was still a child at heart, who was held captive all these years. Never before had a wiser child graced the streets of the village hidden in the Mist. Naruto now understood why Shikamaru always talked about the king being the children of the village now. Children were perhaps one of the most sacred gifts given to mankind.

Naruto smiled as he palmed the ring around his neck. It was the last thing that Yagura had that he wanted to give to Naruto to show his appreciation for freeing him at last. Naruto had stayed with him till his last breath and breathed assurances in his ear. Yagura had gripped his hand fiercely as he knew that his inevitable end was coming. Before he took his last breath, Naruto had leant toward him and whispered to him, "Life is but a dream from which we all must awake." Naruto had smiled as Yagura had loosened his grip and smiled while closing his eyes. Naruto held his hand until it had gone limp completely, with the smile still on his face. Naruto looked up to the sky as tears fell from his eyes, he knew that Yagura was probably in Aslan's kingdom, but even then, the loss still hurt. Naruto had folded Yagura's hands before placing his palm on his heart. "May you always find water and shade in the afterlife brother."

And so it was that the jinchuriki of the three tails had passed onto the realm of afterlife, while Naruto was left with a vase that contained the three tails itself. There had been many political aspirations towards the three tails as the council in Uzushio found out about it being caught. They had wished to create another jinchuriki, thinking that it would give them the edge required to balance out against the other shinobi nations due to a lower number of ninjas in their ranks. Naruto had strictly put his foot down and said that another jinchuriki will not be created. The council had then asked for what was to be done with the bijuu then. Naruto had told them that the way in which the bijuu is sealed right now, it will die on its own within a few months on its own. One of the civilian council member had asked what they were to do if the bijuu escaped from the vase.

"It cannot escape it even if it wants to. The vase that I used to seal the bijuu in is a special vase that was passed down in my family from centuries ago. It is a remnant from an era from which that arch in the Tree of Life came from. The vase is made out of a substance called Cuendillar, or otherwise known as heartstone. This material is indestructible, and any force that tries to break it will only end up making it more stronger. Hence we have no worries on that end." Naruto had finished his argument with a sense of finality on the topic. He had another plan for the bijuu altogether, one that he didn't feel comfortable sharing with anyone here.

After the meeting had ended Naruto had gone back into the room on his estate that controlled Aslan's seal. He had taken the vase in there with him. He had left the vase in the room, locked the door and activated the seal from the outside and had it use the power that was contained in the vase. When he walked back in, he found the face empty with the lid placed on the side of it. Naruto smiled to himself and hoped that Aslan had been able to help the three tails as well.

Naruto brought himself out of his musings to pay attention to the ongoing class again. Naruto yawned again as he said, "That's it guys, hand in your tests now, the time's up." Naruto walked about collecting the papers as the kids filed out of the door as quickly as they could. Naruto smiled at them and thought about himself when he was a kid himself. The now empty classroom was interrupted by a noise from the doorway. Naruto slid the door open to see a SIO agent in front of him. Naruto nodded at him and shunshined away.

Naruto and the SIO agent appeared in front of the Tree of Life (Avendesora). Naruto made a left turn and walked towards a tall building that was built with post haste in the last month. Some construction was still going on but it was mostly complete. Naruto walked to the top floor and knocked on the door. A quiet enter was heard from inside.

Naruto walked inside the office and saw Mei sitting in her chair while twiddling with her thumbs. She looked at Naruto with her lone eye and nodded at him. Naruto took a seat opposite her and raised a questioning eyebrow when she activated a seal on her desk that made sure that no one could listen in on their conversation. "I take it you found him Mei-Chan?"

Mei nodded and said, "We found the former weasel ANBU of Konoha. Are you sure it is wise of you to approach him. I don't know what the reason is for which you wish to meet him, but I think I have an idea towards it. Even so men like him have no heart, he would sooner kill you than hear you out. Are you absolutely sure about this?"

Naruto nodded his head once. Mei sighed and tossed him a package. Naruto looked at the package and smiled as he saw a traditional SIO outfit. He nodded at Mei as he disappeared in a shunshin while leaving behind traces of water. Mei scowled, she thought that she should really start charging people fines for making the floor of her office wet. She held her head as she felt a headache coming in. Mei looked out the side of her window and smiled as she saw little kids playing around the trees that had grown around the Tree of life. It had only been a month and yet the plants were growing at a very quick rate. It seems that Avendesora was constantly providing a steady stream of chakra outwards towards all the other tree around them. Mei shook her head and went back to her work.

**2 weeks later**

Naruto held a heand in front of his face as he was pelted down by the rain. He looked like a stork amongst peacocks while in his regular chunin outfit amongst SIO members. Naruto spied the SIO members hidden in the woods as he waited in the clearing. After training with his chakra coat for an extended period for a time, the ability to sense people had filtered into him. Now Naruto was able to sense people all around him without utilising the chakra from Kurama. Naruto looked towards the thick foliage as he felt a vast chakra signature making his way towards him. Naruto waited as he was soon joined by a stranger wearing a dark black cloak and a hat shaped like an upside down cone on his head. The stranger flicked a finger upwards so that Naruto was able to see their eyes. The red eyes with the spinning tomoes was all he needed to see before he was sure that the person standing in front of him was Itachi Uchiha.

"You have a funny way of asking people to meet you Naruto-kun," said Itachi.

"Well this meeting needed to happen as soon as possible," said Naruto while smiling at Itachi. "Shall we go somewhere out of this rain?" asked Naruto. Naruto took it as a given and began to move away from the site. He didn't look back to check if Itachi followed or not, he knew he did as after a second passed he sensed someone close by him at all times. This was certainly not a part of the plan that he had discussed with SIO agents, but he gave a signal of a closed fist opening and closing three times up in the air. When he noticed that they weren't coming after them anymore, he nodded in a satisfied manner. Naruto soon came upon the site he had prepared before hand. Naruto quickly moved into the shelter provided by the outrock cropping outwards. He bent towards the dry sticks and did a small fire jutsu to get the fire going. Naruto took a seat on one of the logs and started to warm his hands as he waited for Itachi to get comfortable.

Itachi took a seat opposite of Naruto and looked at him curiously. He had been living as a missing nin for a while and it was odd for him to come upon military personnel from a village that was interested in meeting him rather than killing him. He had cautiously made his way into the meeting, but was surprised when the presences that were tailing him dropped. Itachi looked at Naruto like he was an odd puzzle. From what he knew, Naruto should be a kid at most, but here he was looking like he was perhaps a teen. "What did you wish to talk about Naruto-kun?" asked Itachi.

Naruto stared at the man in front of him. He felt pity for him on the inside but at the same time he respected him. After looking at him Naruto was even surer of his current choice of actions. Although watching Itachi weighing him on scales by just looking at him was slightly uncomfortable to say the least. Naruto stared at the fire for a few more seconds before opening the dark blue vest that he was wearing and removed a picture from it. He wordlessly extended the picture towards Itachi and waited for him to take it. Itachi merely stared at him, weighing him and his actions before slowly and gracefully reaching for the picture. He took the picture while keeping his eyes on Naruto and then flipped the picture around slowly. Naruto kept a close eye on him to see what his reaction would be. The first thing that registered in Itachi's mind when he saw the picture was that there was a tall yellow haired male standing next to a dark haired boy. The both of them were holding up a huge fish between the two of them with a huge smile on their faces. Itachi wasn't sure why it was that he was given this picture. He was about to return it to Naruto when in the corner he saw a woman. She was facing sideways, only captured in the picture by coincidence. But Itachi would recognize that face anywhere. The hand holding the picture tightened slightly.

Naruto noticed that Itachi had finally noticed who the boy and the woman in that picture were. Naruto watched a myriad of emotions flash through Itachi's eyes before they were back to their cold and jaded look. The red eyes flipped to black and then red again as Itachi was jolted from his cool persona for a little moment. A corner of Naruto's mouth slightly tugged up at seeing the all powerful Itachi losing his control over his face by a picture. Then again seeing loved ones you haven't seen for almost two years is bound to have some type of an effect on people. Naruto reached behind him and pulled out a scroll. He applied some chakra into it and watched as it opened up in a puff of smoke. He took out the package given to him by Mei and offered it to Itachi. His companion looked up from the picture and at the package that Naruto held in his hands. Itachi slowly put the picture down next to him and took the package from Naruto. He opened the package and out fell the standard SIO outfit. Complete with the Inu mask and the Uzushio forehead protector with the Uzumaki swirl etched into the metal. Itachi raised a questioning eyebrow at all this. "The Uzunokage and I want you to come and be a part of our ninja ranks. But because of your status as a missing nin, we would like to keep your addition to the ranks on the down side for the time being."

Itachi raised his eyebrows at hearing Naruto's proposal. "And why would you go out of your view to invite a missing nin into your village? As I am sure, you know why it is that I am labelled as such."

Naruto smirked as he replied, "Yes I am well aware of the Uchiha massacre that occurred a couple of years ago in Konoha. But as you saw the picture, I also know the real reason for why it is that such an incident came about." Naruto paused to gauge Itachi's expression, but was disappointed when nothing was visible. Itachi's expression remained cold and hard, not even displaying a slight flinch. You could probably crack hard boiled eggs on such a face. Naruto sighed, "Look I know that what happened in Konoha wasn't something that was planned by you. Also I am sure from that you can tell that I am close to Shinji-kun. He is my student right now, but even so, the kid has the right to meet his father. Kami knows what I wouldn't do to spend a few days with my own father. I came here for him, not for you. For whatever reason, you can accept or reject this. But if you do choose to accept this olive branch, then trust me, you have nothing to fear in regards to the safety of your family, we will make sure to keep them safe. Believe it!"

"What if I choose to betray you Naruto-kun, what then?" asked Itachi in his cold voice.

"Then I will destroy you without hesitation," said Naruto with a steely glint in his eyes. "There is nothing in this world that is capable of destroying what I hold dear, and with each day that passes, I grow stronger and stronger. To make things clear, I am not placing my trust in you, but rather in Masumi-san. I don't know who you are and so I don't respect you. You will have to earn my respect as does everyone else. But if you even think of harming the villagers or Shinji-kun, Kami forbit it, but I will break you, physically and mentally. You better believe it!" Naruto snarled out the last part loudly. He believed most of what he said, except the respect portion of it. But he had to make it clear to Itachi that if he came there, then he came to stay, he couldn't just up and leave one day.

Itachi smirked slightly at listening to the boy's, no man's speech in front of him. He nodded his head and asked the last question that he had. "Why the Inu mask. I would have liked my own weasel mask back."

Naruto shook his head and smirked, "That is a secret that I don't want to tell you just yet." Naruto smiled and said, "well I have spent more time than I anticipated here. I hope for both yours and Shinji-kun's sake that you choose to live in Uzushio. But if you don't it's your loss. I am sure I can introduce someone nice to Masumi-san who would be a great husband and father to Shinji-kun." Naruto stood up and exited the clearing. He was about to leave when he felt unrestrained Killing intent hit him in his back. Naruto panicked for a second before he reined in his emotions. He looked back over towards Itachi and smirked at him before leaving the clearing.

Itachi stared as Naruto's back disappeared through the foliage. He looked up towards the raining clouds and sighed as he thought about the conversation that had just taken place. He had been spending the last two years as a missing nin, taking up random missions for sketchy clients and such. It sure would be nice to meet his son and his girlfriend of that time. Perhaps he could even convince her to marry him, but of course he will have to drop his name completely. Perhaps he should take on her name. Yes, Itachi Takamura had a nice ring to it. Itachi smiled as he left for the town closest to him. It wouldn't do to show up in front of his family without gifts of sorts at least.

**10 Months and 2 weeks later**

"Are you sure you want to do this Naruto?" asked Mei.

Naruto nodded at her to do so. Mei looked sceptical for a few more seconds before she called in the SIO commander, Shiaki-san. "Shiaki-san, Naruto here has just been promoted to a jounin. I want you take him with you in SIO and show him the different fields of ninja. I want you to put him in Stealth and Tracking as that is one thing that he is severely lacking in at this point."

Shiaki nodded his head and said, "He will be put under one of our finest captains in SIO to learn under. Naruto you are to learn under Inu. Inu!" At the loud command a ninja decked in standard SIO garb was standing in front of him. "I want you to take this new recruit under your wing and teach him the proper ways of Stealth and Tracking."

Naruto yelped, "Hey aren't you supposed to give me my mask before you introduce us. I thought that the idea was for us to be incognito at all times." Naruto crossed his arms and pouted slightly. Mei chuckled in the background slightly as the ninja with the Inu mask suddenly disappeared and appeared behind Naruto while holding a knife at his neck.

"Before you ask me how I did that, don't bother. I won't answer any of your questions. I will show something to you once and I expect you to learn it, if you don't then there shall be certain physical punishments that you will have to do to appease me. You do what I tell you to without any arguments whatsoever. You are a soldier under my command now and I am your Kami and your lord while we are out in the wild. Is that understood recruit?" whispered a silky voice in Naruto's ear. Before Naruto could go on and argue, he felt the kunai at his neck dig in slightly and draw forth a bit of blood. Naruto whimpered silently and nodded quickly. "Good, now go grab your gear and meet me in front of the gates in ten minutes." Naruto nodded and was about to leave before Itachi interrupted him again. "And if you aren't there in exactly ten minutes, I will take that as you disobeying an order. Move, the seconds are already passing by," drawled Itachi in his calm voice. Naruto just glared at him and hopped out of the window and started to make his way towards the Uzumaki residence at a quick pace.

"You do realize that it wasn't his fault that that incident happened at your wedding you know," chuckled Mei.

"Hmph, all I know is that he was the one that started Shinji on that path, so anything that Shinji does, he is indirectly responsible for it," muttered Itachi. "Uzunokage-sama," Itachi bowed to Mei and left by using shunshin. It was going to be interesting for the next couple of years now, mused Mei. A file was turned over on Mei's desk about a report of ANBU agents trying to infiltrate the village to get to Shinji and Aoi. She knew that those two had some precious bloodline limits, but the sun would rather rise from the west before she let them have it. She sighed as she looked down at the desk; the bane of all kages was waiting for her. The paperwork.

**3 Years later, a few weeks before Chunin exams**

It had been roughly 5 years now since Naruto had left the village of fire. He had tried to keep constant letters between him and Hinata, but the chances were scarce as he was trying to keep a slightly low profile at the moment. And it isn't quite easy to escape Jiraiya's spy network. The man might be a super pervert, but his spy network without question was one of the best ones in the nation.

Naruto sighed as he remembered his days under Itachi in SIO. Itachi had taken extreme pleasure in Naruto's pain in beating out the loud mouth personality of his. Oh he had no expression on his face at any given time, but dry hoarse chuckles that made you crawl in your bed and hide could be heard emanating from behind that mask. Naruto shivered when he remembered one particular mission where he went out of his way to alert his enemy to his presence before trying to kill him. Now in most cases this would be an honourable thing rather than stabbing them in the back. However, the mission was that of an assassination. So suffice to say, Itachi was livid as while carrying out the attack after the target was aware of them had resulted in more casualties then expected. Not on their side but on the enemies' side, so everything was fine. Or so Naruto thought, until Itachi personally started taking his kunai a little to close to the package responsible for Naruto's children's future. Naruto remembered one specific day when he almost lost all his ability to have children by a kunai.

Naruto shivered and pulled out of his depressed funk as he looked at the scroll laid out in front of him. He was standing a few kilometres in the forest that now surrounded the village. The tree of life had really aided in increasing the number of trees around the village. Naruto took a deep breath as he slowly uncapped the scroll and started to open it. It was the summoning scroll for one of the beasts that the Uzumaki of the past used a lot. However due to the ridiculous demands of the beasts, no one was able to use the scroll to its full potential. The manner in which the scroll worked was that you had to have a battle with the creature you summoned before you are given the right to summon them again. Defeating a higher summon would allow you to summon lower powered creatures without having to fulfill any demands whatsoever.

Naruto smiled at the insane thing he was about to do. He quickly bit his palm and started to write his name down in the scroll. After he was satisfied with it he rolled it up again and tied it to his back. Naruto took a deep breath before he bit his healed thumb again and started to make the seals again. When he was done he opened his eyes and pushed as much chakra as possible and pushed it through. "Summoning jutsu!" Yelled Naruto as he was obscured by a loud puff of smoke.

When the smoke cleared, Naruto involuntarily whimpered. There standing in front of him was a beast that was just as big as Gamabunta if not bigger. It had orange and white fur with dark stripes across it. The beast had bright yellow eyes as it loomed above him in a majestic grace. Naruto whimpered in fear as in front of him was a tiger. Guess the name on the scroll stating Shibera no Tora should have given him an indication that a big furry cat was about to pop up here. Naruto hung his head slightly as he wondered why these things had to happen to him. He jumped out of the way and quickly started forming required hand seals to activate the seals he had placed in the forest everywhere. Once they were activated, it was down to contest of wills between him and the beast. Naruto smirked darkly as he was sure that he won't lose when it came to that particular contest.

It was after a few hours that a badly bruised Naruto was seen making his way towards his estate in the village. The people on the streets eyed him nervously as he slowly limped/ran towards his home. Many people tried to greet him upon sight by raising their hands in a cheerful manner, but after getting a closer look at him, they were left hanging.

It was only a few minutes before he made it back to his estate. His wounds had slowly been healing thanks to Kurama's chakra. Kurama still wasn't on great terms with him. Naruto had tried everything possible, but since when had things been easy in life for him. He quickly stepped into a shower and cleaned himself of the dried blood and grime from the forest. Once he was clean, he went out to his room and picked out the clothes he wore as the jounin cell leader of team 9. His team was interesting to say the least, he had run them ragged through the paces in order to get them stronger. When you came from a village with fewer shinobi, you had to make sure that the quality of your shinobi was slightly higher than above. However, that might be difficult to prove as the leaf village spawned shinobi like bugs and they just happened to be of a slightly higher quality in comparison. Many people might disregard their motto of "will of fire", but Naruto had to admit, that the strong believers of that slogan did end up getting pretty far in their careers. He quickly outfitted himself in the standard jounin clothing which consisted of black pants, and a black full sleeved shirt matched with a green sleeveless flak jacket. He tugged on his ninja sandals and pulled on his backpack. He looked at himself in the mirror one more time and smiled to himself, his friends in Konoha were definitely going to be shocked at seeing him become so much stronger. Naruto nodded to himself and formed the seal for using shunshin.

Shinji had been sitting on one of the smaller bridges made over little streams across the village. He was waiting for his Sensei to get here so that they could start going towards their own chunin exams. The other teams were already there with their sensei and the Uzunokage was there as well. Shinji tossed his arms behind his head and looked at the clouds rolling by slowly.

Naruto dropped into the clearing suddenly and moved towards their team. They stuck around for a few last minute instructions from their leader before starting to make their way towards the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

**A/N: And that's it for this chapter. One of the worst chapters I have written to date, but this had to be done, I am so sorry that you had to endure this, but be strong, we have survived lol. Next chapter, Chunin Exams finally begin. Leave any reviews that you feel like, but be gentle, I know this wasn't my best chapter but I have finally gotten over my writer's block and have a direction towards the end goal now! **

**Ginzo**


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